FROM  THE  ; 


M.  <L  Cutting 


GIFT  OF 
Class   of  1887 


W.  T.  F.  SMITH,  M.  D.,  Author. 


THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 


BY 

W.  T.  F.  SMITH,  M.  D. 

AUTHOR   OF 

"LABOR  AND  CAPITAL— INDUSTRIALISM" 

EDITOR   OF 

"THE  COMBINE  AGE" 


ILLUSTRATED 


SAN     FRANCISCO 


19O6 


COPYRIGHTED  1904 
BY  W.  T.  F.  SMITH,  M.  D. 

ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


To  my  friends  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  who 
have  an  especial  interest  in  the  prosperity  of  the  Republic. 

To  the  public  schools  of  America  in  which  it  was  my 
privilege  to  teach  for  sixteen  years. 

To  the  Medical  Profession  of  which  I  am  a  graduate. 

To  the  Knights  of  Labor  in  which,  in  my  younger  days, 
I  was  a  Master  Workman. 

To  the  Christian  Church  of  which  I  have  been  a  member 
for  fifty  years. 

To  those  willing  to  waive,  forget,  and  forgive  the  imposi- 
tions and  wounds  that  competitive  fighting  has  inflicted  on  both 
rich  and  poor,  and  with  a  gallant  optimism  accept  it  all  as  a 
preparatory  training  for  the  higher  form  of  civilization — the 
adoption  of  the  Peoples  Industrial  Combine. 


845668 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

Let  us  repeat  together  Lincoln's  sentiment, 
"With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  strive  on,  to  finish  the  work  we 
are  in." 

We  Americans  have  been  engaged  in  trying  to 
solve  our  industrial  problem  for  a  long  time.  We 
may  not  know  it,  but  we  have  just  now  come  to 
a  Combine  of,  for  and  by  all  Americans.  It  but 
remains  to  Americanize  Combine  as  we  did  Gov- 
ernment in  1776,  and  it  becomes  just  what  we  all 
want.  This  may  seem  at  first  like  finding  a  gold 
mine  where  we  least  expect  it,  but  may  not  Peace 
have  her  victories  no  less  renowned  than  war? 

Must  not  the  Labor  question  be  settled  some- 
time, why  not  now?  Simply  to  Americanize 
Combine  will  actually  settle  it  right,  agreeable  to 
all,  and  that  can  be  done  in  a  day. 

Graft  must  be  stopped.  To  Americanize  Com- 
bine is  the  only  way  to  stop  Graft. 


6  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

Poverty  is  industrial  disloyalty;  it  must  be 
driven  from  under  the  Flag  as  completely  as  poli- 
tical disloyalty  has  been.  Americanize  Combine, 
then  all  become  shareholders,  no  American  share- 
holder can  be  financially  poor.  No  property 
owner  can  fear  a  competitor.  Combine  has  a 
satisfactory  way  of  settling  with  original  owners 
so  that  nobody  loses. 

Combine  is  the  very  antithesis  of  Communism, 
is  it  not*?  Let  me  say  persuasively  that  Socialism 
is  clearly  un-American.  Government  ownership 
is  undoubtedly  absurd — a  mere  figure  of  speech, 
a  make-believe,  surely  a  thing  cannot  own.  Man 
only  is  competent  to  own,  besides  industry  is  the 
whole — government  is  only  a  part.  Combine  is 
industry  systematized.  Government  naturally  is 
a  part  of  that  system,  its  only  office  being  to  pro- 
tect while  Americans  make  the  living. 

Thoughtfully,  is  not  every  American  as  much 
entitled  to  be  an  equal  owner  as  an  equal  voter? 
If  not,  why  not?  Do  not  toss  it  off,  I  beg  of  you, 
but  answer  the  question,  and  while  you  are  an- 
swering, answer  another:  Is  it  not  an  utterly 
hopeless  outlook  for  Labor  to  ever  hope  to  "win 
out"  in  a  battle  against  Capital,  when  every  sol- 
dier in  the  Labor  army  expects  soon  to  desert  and 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  7 

join  the  enemy — become  a  Capitalist?  Kindly, 
comrades,  rich  or  poor,  why  fight  Combine  another 
hour?  Fighting  is  not  rational,  we  can't  "win 
out"  by  fighting,  but  rather  by  Combining.  Take 
a  last  look  at  Competition.  Then  turn  away  in 
disgust  and  ask  yourself,  "Was  it  not  only  a  relic 
of  barbarism — a  vicious  force  of  habit — the  mean- 
est kind  of  war,  impossible  in  Christianized  civi- 
lization? 

Wages. — Was  not  wages  high  or  low  still 
wages,  still  menial,  still  class  conscious,  still  a 
species  of  slavery?  Dividends  is  freedom,  the 
Combine  way  to  distribute  rations  among  share- 
holders, among  Americans. 

Strikes. — A  strike  was  but  rebellion — rebellion 
(during  Competative  chaos)  against  the  wage 
system.  It  was  in  fact,  a  clamor  for  equal  divi- 
dends, a  clamor  that  will  never  down — Americans 
can  never  be  satisfied  with  anything  less. 

Lockout. — A  lockout  was  but  the  spitework  of 
children.  Combine  is  "System" — the  business 
System  of  American  men,  full  grown  men,  legally 
incorporated,  and  to  thus  properly  and  definitely 
make  a  living. 

Men  must  have  something  to  eat,  no  matter 
what  they  believe,  but  observe — the  moment  all 


8  AUTHOR'S  NOTE 

Americans  become  shareholders  that  settles  THE 
LIVING  for  all  time.  That  moment  morality  has 
a  fair  chance  to  be  virtuous,  religion  has  a  fair 
chance  to  be  consistent,  and  Politics  has  a  fair 
chance  to  be  clean.  Shareholders  then  will  be 
Americans  whose  mutual  interest  and  profit  com- 
pels them  to  be  fair  and  square. 

To  read  THE  TRUST  "TRUSTED,"  with 
interest  consider : 

First — That  everything  else  but  this  distinctive 
American  way  has  failed ;  that  something  must  be 
done  quickly,  the  time  is  ripe — the  iron  is  hot. 
The  way  is  plain,  tried  and  true.  Home  and 
plenty  beckons  us  on. 

Second — The  American  way  "of,  for  and  by 
all"  is  the  only  way  for  Americans  to  do  things. 

tfhird — Combine  is  already  backed  by  Ameri- 
can Statute  Law,  so  what's  the  use  to  oppose  it*? 

Fourth — Combine's  system  of  business  is 
thought  to  be  fair  by  its  own  shareholders,  and  we 
can't  disprove  it.  The  fact  is,  you,  sir,  rather 
want  to  join  them — you  really  want  to  be  a  share- 
holder. It  means  to  you  both  ease  and  luxury. 

Fifth — The  thing  to  do  is  for  every  American 
at  once  to  advocate  combine,  want  to  become  a 
shareholder,  a  part  of  Combine.  Remember  that 


AUTHOR'S  NOTE  9 

all  Americans  is  necessary  to  the  complete  success 
of  the  part,  in  Government,  so  in  Combine. 

At  two  o'clock  on  July  4,  1776,  America 
changed  in  the  twinkle  of  an  eye  from  a  Monarchy 
to  its  opposite — a  Republic.  The  time  is  now 
ripe  for  America  to  change  as  suddenly  and  com- 
pletely from  Competition  to  Combination,  that, 
was  done  by  political  action,  this,  will  be  done  by 
industrial  action. 

After  reading  this  book — this  object  lesson  for 
the  common  people — and  you  are  still  in  doubt, 
take  up  my  text  book  of  ten  short  lectures  to  the 
ten  different  industrial  classes.  These  are  bound 
in  one  volume. 

Ask  for  "Capital  and  Labor  by  Smith."  Price, 
$1.50.  Address  Combine  Age  Magazine,  Mar- 
ket, Sixteenth  and  Noe  Streets,  San  Francisco. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.       LAST  OF   THE   COMPETITIVE  AGE 11 

II.       COMBINE   AGE    BEGINS 26 

III.  GODDESS   DEFENDS   COMBINE 35 

IV.  COMBINE  SPEAKS   FOR  HIMSELF 52 

V.       THE    PEOPLE   DEFEND   COMBINE 69 

VI.       COMBINE    WINS   OUT 88 

VII.       ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE.  ...  lOy 

VIII.       LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE 13O 

IX.       SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE 15! 

X.       MORALS RELIGION POLITICS     174 


ONE     FAMILY'S      FANCY 


Combine  means  industrial  helpfulness  in  contra-dis- 
tinction  to  competition.  Our  proposition  is  to  utilize  and  to 
carry  this  Trust  idea  from  the  few  now  in  it,  to  all  Ameri- 
cans. This  j4mericanizes  it,  and  naturally  solves  the  entire 
industrial  problem,  also  fully  settles  the  vexed  Labor  question; 
not  by  socialism,  but  by  industrialism;  not  by  government 
ownership  but  by  individual  ownership,  distinctively  as  corpor- 
ation owns. 

thoughtfully,  our  American  Qo\>emment  is  a  Re- 
public, not  a  man — a  Monarch,  it  cannot  eat,  hence  it  does 
not  need  to  own,  it  cannot,  is  not  competent  to  own — man 
only  can  own.  Combine  ownership  is  actual  American 
ownership  and  not  a  mere  figure  of  speech — Bellamy  dreamed 
of  a  Qovemment  Ownership,  but  relief  comes  from  exactly 
the  opposite  direction.  Every  American  will  naturally 
want  to  build  and  own  his  own  separate  and  peculiar  home 
as  distinctively  as  a  bird  its  nest. 


Please  read  the    seven   illustrations   consecutively    and 
then  read  them  into  the  story. 


THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 


CHAPTER   I 

LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE'' AGE 

It  was  the  evening  of  the  ninth  day  of  July, 
1904.  America  had  just  learned  of  the  nomina- 
tion of  Judge  Parker  as  a  Democratic  candidate 
for  President,  and  had  sat  down  in  the  darkness 
to  think  what  it  all  meant;  until  then,  America 
had  supposed  that  Combine  (the  personified 
money  Power),  could  be  defeated  by  politics,  if 
we,  the  people,  wanted  to  defeat  it.  The  hus- 
band had  come  in  from  the  competitive  field,  his 
hands  red  with  the  blood  money  of  both  friend 
and  foe.  The  wife,  anxious  to  hear  of  his  losses 
and  profits  in  trade,  and  together  gloat  over  the 
profits  or  mourn  over  the  losses. 

"Parker  is  nominated,"  eclipsed  everything, 
and  was  on  the  lips  of  everyone.  "We  expected 


14  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

Roosevelt  to  be  nominated,  the  Republican  Party 
is  the  party  of  Combine,  but  amazement!  has 
Combine,  this  personified  money  power,  really 
captured  our  Democratic  Party  and  with  it  taken 
the  Goddess  of  Liberty,  the  apple  of  our  eye4? 
bought  our  daughter?  bought  the  government? 

#•..•*.:  >K  *  *  *  *          * 


yo.u  really  think  we  can't  break  it  off?" 
"•;'*N0;:wi'fe/I  am  afraid  it's  a  real  love  affair; 
matters  have  already  gone  too  far.    I  know  God- 
dess  really   loves   Combine,    and   nothing   stops 
love." 

"What!  and  reject  us?" 

Be  patient,  friends;  doting  parents  are  entitled 
to  our  most  profound  sympathy;  paternal  love 
completely  encases  a  daughter.  They  look  with 
the  green  eyes  of  jealousy,  even  upon  a  worthy 
lover  and  insist  not  only  on  their  daughter's  un- 
divided love,  but  ascribe  to  her  all  kinds  of  possi- 
bilities which  she  does  not  possess,  and  accom- 
plishments foreign  to  her  nature.  The  paternal 
love  of  Americans,  for  "of,  for  and  by  all  the  peo- 
ple," this  the  lineal  descendant  of  the  family  that 
came  over  to  America  in  the  Mayflower  is  no  ex- 
ception to  this  rule,  and  Liberty,  their  favorite 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  15 

child,  has  been  actually  deified  and  openly  called 
a  Goddess,  the  Goddess  of  Liberty.  We  would 
not  have  them  love  her  the  less. 

Matters  had  progressed  so  far  that  Combine 
and  Liberty  now  kept  company  in  the  open,  the 
blushing  stage  was  rapidly  passing  away.  She 
had  invited  him  to  attend  an  "outing"  with  mu- 
tual friends,  to  be  held  in  Chicago,  June  21,  for 
the  day  only.  The  convention  was  formal,  the 
business  was  "cut  and  dry"  and  would  not  detain 
them.  The  father,  half  in  jest,  said  to  Goddess 
in  parting,  "go,  daughter,  but  be  sure  to  return 
to  us  heart-whole  and  fancy-free." 

The  convention  was  composed  of  business  men, 
as  it  were,  on  an  outing;  so,  introductions  and 
drawing-room  courtesies,  business  formalities,  in 
a  word,  it  was  a  mutual  admiration  society.  They 
very  properly  kept  business  hours  and  adjourned 
on  time,  and  the  anxious  parents  welcomed  their 
daughter  home  again,  no  mention  being  made  of 
Combine  or  of  her  infatuation,  this  being  a  deli- 
cate subject. 

Goddess,  emboldened  by  the  silence  of  her  par- 
ents, made  another  "appointment."  To  this,  the 
parents  objected  and  reminded  Liberty  that  she 
stood  as  the  representative  of  her  family — "of, 


16  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

for  and  by  the  people" ;  in  fact,  v/as  the  govern- 
ment, and  surely  must  not  be  corrupted,  even  by 
the  mere  association  with  Combine,  and  that  it 
was  immodest  to  invite  him  to  her  conventions; 
"your  brothers  are  quite  enough." 

A  little  petulantly  she  pled,  "why  do  you  ob- 
ject to  St.  Louis?" 

"Oh,  well,"  retorted  the  parents,  "the  Chicago 
convention,  my  dear,  was  different." 

"How  different?" 

"Well,  don't  ask  impertinent  questions, 
daughter;  it  was  just  for  a  day,  but  this  St.  Louis 
convention  is  not  "programmed,"  and  it  may  last 
over  night,  yes,  and  for  days.  Just  think  of  it, 
and  our  daughter  among  bearded  men  without  a 
chaperone?" 

"Yes,  we  know  Combine  will  be  there,  but 
'there  are  others.5  Bryan  and  Hearst  may  get 
into  a  fight  with  those  New  Yorkers." 

"Yes,  we  know  you  think  Combine  will  be 
there  and  to  take  care  of  you,  the  more  is  the 
pity." 

"To  be  plain,  daughter,  we  do  not  approve  of 
Combine,  and  if  he  goes  to  St.  Louis  on  business, 
he  will  get  into  a  fight  surely,  and  then  it  does  not 
look  well  for  our  daughter  to  'go  with'  a  stranger, 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  17 

a  man  on  purely  a  business  trip;  it  looks  as  if  she 
were  becoming  his  'confident,'  entirely  too  fa- 
miliar, as  if  she  were  going  to  become  his  wife. 
What  need  you  care,  daughter,  about  Combine's 
business  matters;  besides,  you  have  been  reared 
to  believe  in  free  competition  and,  like  the  Ephe- 
sians,  believe  competition  came  down  from 
Jupiter,  and  cannot  be  spoken  against." 

"But,  mother,  if  I  may  speak  one  little  word  for 
myself,  the  level  headed  town  clerk  on  that  occa- 
sion said,  cYe  ought  to  do  nothing  rashly.  These 
men  are  neither  robbers  of  churches  nor  yet  blas- 
phemers of  your  Goddess.'  Father  can  turn  to 
this  unique  speech  of  the  town  clerk  in  a  moment, 
we  have  it  in  the  house.  But  what  need,  anything 
that  I  or  Combine  either  might  say  could  do  no 
good,  so  please  let  me  go." 

"No,  child,  wait  a  moment;  just  answer  why 
did  you  say  'I  or  Combine*?'  The  mere  associa- 
tion of  your  names  is  significant  and  is  repulsive 
to  us."  *  *  * 

"Our  daughter  is  grieved,  mother,  at  your  vehe- 
ment manner  and  language." 

"Well,  why  did  she  not  answer  me?" 

"Why,  as  I  see  her  predicament,  she  could  not 
answer  you,  and  going  to  her  room  was  quite  the 


18  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

proper  thing.  I  have  turned  to  the  old  book  and 
will  read  the  text  you  unfortunately  referred  to 
in  your  determined  effort  to  defend  Competition. 
We  may  find  it  proves  too  much." 

"I  don't  understand  your  inference,  but  please 
read  the  text  aloud  to  me." 

"I  will  regretfully  do  so,  but  will  begin  at  the 
twenty-first  verse  of  the  nineteenth  chapter  of 
Acts  and  read  to  the  end  of  the  chapter." 

(Quotation  from  the  Bible.) 

"I  am  waiting  for  your  comment,  mother." 

"Well,  it  does  seem  up  to  date  in  more  particu- 
lars than  one.  The  leading  one,  however  is,  it 
shows  up  Competition,  which  I  was  lauding  so 
highly  by  calling  it  free,  etc.,  as  but  a  heathen 
idol,  like  Diana  after  all.  Do  you  think  the  time 
will  come,  husband,  when  we  will  be  disgusted 
with  it,  as  these  Ephesians  were  with  their  idols 
after  they  became  really  Christians?" 

"Ha!  Ha!  It  may  be  so.  I  must  tap  on  Lib- 
erty's door  and  tell  her  I  did  not  intend  to  grieve 
her." 

"That  is  right,  mother.  It  is  well  to  always 
have  a  path  open  along  which  we  can  retreat,  can 
make  amends;  for  I  am  really  sure  after  what  I 
have  seen  and  heard  tonight,  that  we  will  yet  be 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  19 

compelled  to  accept  Combine  (as  repulsive  as  he 
now  seems  to  be)  as  our  son-in-law.  May  it  not 
be  that  we  have  misunderstood  Combine,  and  so 
have  seen  no  good  reason  for  our  daughter's  in- 
fatuation"? Combine  may  be  right  after  all. 
What  if  he  should?" 

"Impossible,  impossible,  for  if  so,  Competition 
is  wrong." 

"Keep  cool  now,  you  that  have  gently  chid  me 
for  enthusiasm  must  not  get  excited,  for  I  say  this 
whole  business  is  a  love  affair." 

"But  Combine  is  a  horrid,  big  lubber;  contrast 
him  with  the  beautiful  symmetry  of  our  daughter, 
the  trim  figure  of  the  Goddess  of  Liberty;  and 
then  he  is  a  say-nothing,  as  close-mouthed  as  a 
clam — he  don't  explain  himself;  how  can  we  un- 
derstand him?" 

"To  explain  himself  would  have  been  useless." 

"Don't  get  nervous,  mother;  as  I  was  saying, 
this  is  a  love  affair  and  in  such  affairs  there  is  no 
accounting  for  tastes,  else  how  could  you  have 
ever  been  'struck'  by  me? 

"So  here,  brother,  ha!  ha!" 

"That's  right,  let  us  resolutely  put  ourselves  in, 
and  keep  in  a  good  humor  at  all  hazards,  for  it  is 
absolutely  no  use  to  get  mad  about  a  love  affair, 


20  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

for  Combine  has  got  her,  I  am  beginning  to  think, 
he  has  got  her  as  absolutely  as  you  have  got  me 
signed,  sealed  and  delivered." 

"It  is  too  serious  a  matter  to  make  a  joke  of, 
besides  I  am  the  one  that  usually  plays  the  role 
of  a  joker." 

"Why,  my  dear,  the  fact  that  you  have  got  me 
is  no  joke,  is  it?" 

"No,  and  I  am  rather  proud  of  the  fact." 

"Ah,  and  may  she  not  be  proud  of  it,  proud 
that  she  has  got  Combine*?" 

"Ahem!  But  why  all  this  talk,  husband;  you 
seem  disposed  to  endure  Combine,  I  can't  endure 
him." 

"Listen,  mother;  must  we  not  endure  what  we 
can't  cure,  without  heat,  without  prejudice,  if  pos- 
sible*? Is  there  not  something  here  to  make  us 
really  ponder,  to  make  us  think4?  The  facts  are, 
there  is  much  that  is  good  in  Combine  and  we 
can't  deny  it.  He  is  the  greatest  power  in  America 
today.  Democratic  party  controlled,  Republican 
party  is  in  his  grasp,  governments  bought,  yes  and 
to  him  there  must  be  a  reason  for  buying.  May 
it  not  be  a  good  reason,  what  we  have  been  calling 
and  are  wont  to  call  criminal  conspiracy,  between 
him  and  our  Goddess  of  Liberty,  our  daughter, 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  21 

may  be  criminal  only  in  the  seeming.  The  stand- 
point from  which  we  view  a  human  life  makes  a 
great  difference  in  regard  to  the  judgment  we 
form;  it  makes  all  the  difference  in  the  world 
whose  baby  is  under  discussion,  for  example  Eng- 
land has  said  that  our  Goddess  of  Liberty  is  a 
spoiled  child. 

"How  dare  they!  Yet  I  must  admit  parents 
are  prejudiced  as  a  rule,  but  I  claim  Goddess  is 
an  exception,  and  also  that  to  get  all  I  can  from 
who  ever  I  can  is  fair.  I  believe  in  free  compe- 
tition. 

"Yes,  but  kindly,  may  not  Combine  be  as  'fair' 
a  child  in  his  mother's  eyes'?  In  the  face  of  Com- 
bine's great  achievements  in  America,  we  are 
hardly  in  a  position  to  be  unfair  to  him;  besides, 
'a  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath'  today,  the 
same  as  it  did  in  the  days  of  Solomon.  You  will 
agree  with  me  that  Labor  can  no  more  'win  out* 
in  a  fight  than  can  Capital;  neither  can  stand 
alone,  they  ought  to  be  allies.  It  is  just  as  insane 
for  either  to  fight  as  it  is  for  you  and  I  as  man  and 
wife  to  fight;  and  what  is  Competition  but  fight- 
ing." 

"Hush,  husband,  be  still !  I  have  known  that, 
to  be  true  all  along,  but  we  must  not  speak  it 


22  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

out  loud,  somebody  might  hear  it.  It  has  been 
the  skeleton  in  the  closet,  something  to  keep  to 
one's  self,  an  affliction,  a  deformity,  impolitic  to 
mention,  only  ignored,  quietly  endured,  no  way 
to  help  it,  we  just  had  to  starve  or  compete.  Why 
bring  out  this  skeleton  at  all*?  This  old  world  has 
never  known  a  way  to  prevent  competition,  yet  we 
all  know  it's  inconsistent." 

'True,  mother,  but  because  it  never  has,  are  we 
to  conclude  it  never  can  be  prevented?  Now  if 
Combine  has  found  a  way  to  prevent  industrial 
competition,  are  we  to  hate  him,  simply  because 
we  don't  understand  him,  or  because  a  hardship 
has  come  to  us  for  not  being  a  shareholder.  Our 
daughter  does  understand  him,  and  loves  him  be- 
cause she  understands  him.  May  it  not  be  that 
if  we  understood  him  better  that  we  would  love 
him  better*?  But  if  not,  can't  we  respect  him  on 
our  daughter's  account?" 

"Yes,  that  would  be  policy,  I  admit,  and  it 
would  secure  peace  in  the  whole  family  in  case 
they  marry,  and  the  more  graciousness  we  can 
hereafter  show  Combine,  especially  as  I,  too,  am 
convinced  that  daughter  is  really  engaged,  the 
happier  will  our  daughter  feel.  If  I  am  bereft  of 
my  children,  I  am  bereft,  and  if  she  will  not  stay 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  23 

with  me,  I  must  go  with  her.  I  see  I  must  endure 
what  I  cannot  cure." 

"Thoughtful  wife,  we  have  lived  together  a 
long  time  and  seen  many  troubles.  Some  of  them 
have  turned  out  to  be  blessings  in  disguise.  You 
have  been  my  courage  heretofore,  now  listen  to 
me.  This  seeming  trouble,  I  am  beginning  to 
believe,  is  to  prove  to  all  of  us  a  real  blessing. 
Thoughtfully,  the  government  of  mankind  that 
Goddess  personifies,  is  not  a  simple  thing,  but  af- 
ter all  it  is  not  everything.  Combine  has  also 
struck  our  love  for  free  competition  a  fatal  blow, 
just  where  David  struck  the  Giant  of  Gath,  and 
so  the  bald  selfishness  of  the  Competitive  will, 
must  give  place  to  the  general  self  interest  of  the 
Combine  will,  thereafter,  all  working  together 
agreeably,  for  a  living.  That's  my  prophecy." 

"That  sounds  reasonable,  husband,  and  it  is 
clearly  correct,  as  a  theory,  but  men  practically 
carry  their  fighting  instinct  into  industry,  as  they 
do  into  the  ring.  Yet,  I  ask  myself  why  should 
they?  I  cannot  answer.  I  abominate  fighting 
between  equal  weights,  but  it  is  brutal  for  a  strong 
man,  strong  either  mentally  or  physically,  to 
crush  another,  aye,  it  is  contemptible." 


24  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"Ha!  Ha!  If  our  daughter  should  hear  you 
and  so  know  how  you  are  coming  along,  mother, 
how  fast  we  are  both  approaching  reconciliation, 
coming  to  Combine's  standard,  she  would  not  only 
quit  her  grieving,  but  cheer  up,  and  perhaps  begin 
to  think  of  'setting  the  day/-  a  matter  (so  I  un- 
derstand), that  Combine  has  left  entirely  to  her." 


"Well,  I  must  talk  until  I  get  straightened  out 
a  little.  If  I  must  consent,  I  must  frame  a  good 
reason  for  it.  I  have  often  wondered  why  com- 
petition is  called  free.  I  suppose  because  free  is  a 
praise  word.  We  Americans  like  the  word  free." 

"Yes,  I  can  see  if  we  call  Competition  by  some 
'cussword'  we  would  soon  get  to  hating  Compe- 
tition more  than  we  now  do  Combine,  but  as  it 
is  we  just  have  to  make  ourselves  like  Competi- 
tion; to  take  the  best  in  a  trade  is  a  habit." 

"Yet,  it  does  seem  to  be  a  contemptible  way  to 
make  a  living,  or  save  up  a  little  for  a  rainy  day, 
to  do  so,  by  cheating  whomever  we  can.  Some 
are  so  wily  that  you  can't  cheat  them,  and  so  if 
we  get  on  at  all  it  is  to  cheat,  to  deceive  children 
and  women  and  ignorant  men,  and  ruthlessly  take 
some  or  all  of  their  hard  earning,  for  these  igno- 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  25 

rant,  mentally  weak  ones  are  likely  to  and  fre- 
quently do  actually  produce  more  of  the  necessa- 
ries of  life  than  you  do,  and  yet  free  competition 
permits  you  to  deceive  them  if  you  can  and  take 
what  they  produce.  Custom,  habit  makes  it  right, 
but  conscience  makes  it  all  wrong.  I  must  quit 
this  kind  of  musing  and  cheer  you  on,  husband, 
you  are  a  good  trader;  what  need  we  care? 

"Yet  I  confess,  I  dare  not  think  of  it  when  I 
pray,  especially  in  secret  prayer,  for  I  very  well 
know  that  God  does  not  approve  of  competition; 
it  destroys  Christian  consistency  to  compete.  It 
can't  be  His  way.  I  read  where  He  says,  'what- 
soever ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do 
you  even  so  to  them,'  and  I  am  sure  that  I  would 
not  like  to  have  a  wiser  or  more  unscrupulous  man 
take  advantage  of  your  ignorance  or  your  actual 
necessity.  Yet  we  must  compete?  There  is  no 
other  visible  way  except  to  do  as  Combine  does. 
It  makes  me  shudder." 

"Now  that  you  have  spoken  musingly  of  Com- 
bine, I  find  I  yet  also  dread  to  even  mention  his 
name,  for  I  am  convinced  that  he  loves  our  daugh- 
ter, and  that  she  loves  him,  and  yet  how  can  we 
consent?" 


26  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"Horrible,  is  it  not?  What  were  you  about  to 
say?" 

"Only  this,  that  he  really  has  a  way  of  being 
perfectly  fair  with  his  own  shareholders,  I  must 
admit." 

"Yes,  but  all  the  people  cannot  become  share- 
holders, and  that  ends  it." 

"Thoughtfully  now,  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that. 
Your  very  question  carries  with  it  a  significant 
doubt,  but  as  you  say,  we  must  not  speak  one  little 
word  in  his  favor,  lest  we  be  persuaded,  be  he  ever 
so  clever.  For  I  am  afraid  we  have  admitted  too 
much  already.  Yes,  I  know  that  Goddess  loves 
him,  and  we  are  to  blame.  We  must  ignore  him 
hereafter,  we  must,  if  possible." 

"Yes,  and  I  know  he  loves  Goddess,  and  if  we 
don't  break  it  off  somehow  it  will  cause  us  trouble 
yet.  I  wish  we  had  never  let  them  play  together 
when  they  were  children." 

"True,  and  yet  we  could  not  consistently  help 
ourselves,  for  we  named  him,  don't  you  remember, 
wife,  we  named  him,  called  him  'Corporation 
Act*?'  Combine  is  only  a  nickname;  'System'  is 
his  real  name.  Wall  Street  calls  him  very  aptly, 
'System.'  " 


LAST  OF  THE  COMPETITIVE  AGE  27 

"We  must  take  a  little  more  time  to  think  it  all 
over  and  talk  about  it.  I  see  that  it  is  not  so 
much  what  we  have  done  in  the  past,  are  doing 
now,  or  prefer  to  do  in  the  future,  but  it  is  a 
question  of  what  we  can  and  should  do.  We  must, 
willing  or  not,  adjust  ourselves  to  Combine's  ways 
and  learn  to  love  him  (if  what  we  suspect  is  true). 
And  may  it  not  be  that  we  shall  in  the  very  near 
future  succeed  in  finding  him  to  be  a  physical  ath- 
lete, a  really  worthy  and  lovable  character?" 

"I  must  confess  I  tremble  helplessly  between 
my  hopes  and  my  fears.  I  will  talk  it  over  with 
Goddess  tomorrow,  and  try  to  break  it  up." 


CHAPTER  II 

COMBINE  AGE  BEGINS 

The  husband,  reluctantly,  had  fought  through 
another  day  of  competitive  business,  feeling  guilty 
of  taking  the  best  in  a  trade  of— well,  of  every- 
body that  he  could.  He  had  retreated  to  his  hiding 
place  behind  the  kitchen  stove — this  corner  of  the 
room,  the  pleasantest  place  in  the  house,  because 
of  the  presence  of  his  wife,  still  busy  with  house- 
hold affairs.  She  looked  remarkably  pleased  to- 
night and  seemed  about  to  speak,  but  was  stu- 
diously awaiting  a  more  opportune  time  when  her 
kitchen  was  in  perfect  order.  Her  appearance  per- 
plexed him.  The  remarkable  change  on  her  face 
from  the  night  before  made  him  fear  to  hear  her 
speak;  he  feared  that  her  smile  betokened  success. 
What  if  she  had  succeeded  in  "breaking  off"  the 
engagement  that  her  daughter  undoubtedly  had 
made  with  Combine*?  The  facts  were,  now  that 
he  had  allowed  himself  to  think  for  just  one  day, 


28 


COMBINE  AGE  BEGINS  29 

that  he  had  begun  to  admire  Combine.  Combine 
had  a  way  of  doing  things  that  appealed  to  him, 
even  in  spite  of  jealous  Papa's  and  Mama's;  of 
actually  accomplishing  things  which  the  "faint 
heart"  of  competition  never  had  or  could  have 
had.  These  invincible  ways  appealed  to  the  man- 
liness of  a  business  man. 

If  he  could  not  comprehend  the  smiling  face  of 
the  wife,  neither  could  he  the  unexplained  absence 
of  the  daughter  (absent  for  prudential  reasons — 
proposed  by  the  mother  and  agreed  to  by  the 
daughter).  Ah,  a  wife  soon  learns  that  she  can 
manage  a  husband  best  in  a  great  crisis  to  take 
him  alone.  By  the  time  the  evening  work  was 
rounded  up,  her  smile  had  become  agony  to  him. 
He  continued  to  ask  himself,  what  if  she  has  suc- 
ceeded in  destroying  Combine,  or  in  driving  him 
away  forever1?  And  now,  as  she  took  her  com- 
fortable kitchen  chair  and  was  about  to  recite  that 
she  had  locked  her  daughter  in  her  room  and  was 
smiling  over  her  savage  victory,  he  trembled  in 
the  contemplation  of  such  a  dire  disaster;  for, 
though  it  had  been  a  puzzle  how  best  to  deal  with 
Combine,  he  saw  it  was  death  to  do  without  him. 
Now,  when  up  against  the  test,  he  actually  loved 
Combine,  and  could  not  think  of  Combine  any 


30  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

longer  as  an  enemy,  but  rather  as  a  son  on  whom 
to  lean — a  son  who,  no  doubt  (as  it  now  appeared 
to  him),  intended  to  bring  home  and  plenty  to  the 
whole  family  (after  all  no  young  man  can  hate 
the  parents  that  bring  him  a  lovable  wife). 
These  moments  were  excruciating,  the  very  dark- 
est of  his  life,  but  the  darkest  hour  was  just  be- 
fore the  day  that  now  dawned,  for  the  wife  be- 
gun: "I  have  gladly  surrendered  to  the  superior 
judgment  of  our  daughter  and  have  agreed  with 
her  to  persuade  you  to  become  reconciled  to  Com- 
bine." Instead  of  an  ordinary  dawning,  the  light 
of  high  noon  filled  that  kitchen.  Of  what  need  to 
persuade  a  man  who  was  already  convinced?  Yet, 
she  set  about  her  task  and  nothing  was  left  for 
him  to  do  but  to  sit  still  and  listen. 

"Observe,  husband,  that  our  daughter  is  no 
longer  our  baby,  but  a  woman  grown,  a  compan- 
ion now,  having  loves  of  her  own;  yet,  she  is  as 
dear  to  us  and  we  to  her  as  when  we  held  her  in 
our  arms  and  called  her  'Goddess,'  her  baby 
name.  It's  an  old  saying  'Love  matches  are  made 
in  Heaven.'  I  now  believe  this  one  was.  Today, 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  have  talked  to 
daughter  as  one  woman  talks  to  another — her 
equal.  I  realize  I  have  lost  my  baby,  but  gained 


COMBINE  AGE  BEGINS  31 

a  friend,  a  comrade,  a  counter-part.  She  under- 
stands Combine  perfectly;  and  explained  to  me 
that  he  had  the  kindest  feelings  for  you  and  me. 
How  that  he  had  seen  the  trials  and  hardships  of 
eking  out  a  miserable  living  under  competition  as 
you  have  always  been  compelled  to  do.  How 
that  competition  had  always  not  only  made  pugi- 
lists, but  slaves  of  all  of  us.  And  how  that  the 
great  designer  had  designed  that  mankind  should 
only  work  for  a  living — not  fight  for  it.  That 
God  had  not  made  man  just  to  have  somebody 
to  punish  by  a  stern  sentence  to  hard  labor  for  life, 
but  that  to  eat  bread  by  the  sweat  of  the  brow  was 
only  the  kindliest  possible  guarantee  to  the  one 
who  sweat  that  he  or  she  would  have  abundance 
of  sweet  bread  to  eat,  and  that  he  who  tried  to  get 
bread  some  other  way  was  a  thief  and  a  robber; 
and  that  he,  Combine,  did  not  belong  to  the  robber 
class  where  we  so  unjustly  had  placed  him,  but 
emphatically  to  the  American  class  who  all  alike 
sweat  to  eat.  That  Combine  had  explained  to  her 
how  that  the  settlement  of  the  vexed  Labor  ques- 
tion, together  with  the  entire  industrial  problem, 
was  not  a  reform  movement,  not  a  moral  or  re- 
ligious sentiment,  not  a  political  question,  but 
essentially  and  strictly  a  business  matter  and  natu- 


32  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

rally  every  business  matter  must  be  managed  by 
business  measures  and  methods." 

"Did  Combine  tell  her  why  he  had  not  tried  to 
settle  the  Labor  question?" 

"Yes,  exactly — our  prejudice  (the  reason  of 
reasons  it  may  be  called)  that  I  entertained  but 
yesterday — we  were  so  jealous  and  prejudiced 
then — and  did  not  try  to  see  any  good  in  Com- 
bine, and  'it  is  impossible  to  convince  mankind 
against  his  will.'  The  human  will,  led  on  by  force 
of  competitive  habit,  would  not  listen,  and  of 
course  could  not  have  heard  even  the  sweetest 
music,  supposing,  (from  the  force  of  habit),  that 
any  proposition  that  did  not  have  a  fight  in  it 
was  no  good — Labor  fighting  Capital  and  Capital 
fighting  back,  employer  squeezing  the  employee 
and  the  employee  squirming  for  dear  life,  even  lit- 
tle corporations  fighting  other  little  corporations 
like  children — it  was  no  use  to  remonstrate  with 
them  as  long  as  they  insisted  that  there  was  no 
other  way  but  for  one  to  down  the  other,  appar- 
ently ignorant  of  the  fact  that  all  men  must  eat 
to  live,  and  one  man  about  the  same  as  another. 
He  also  pointed  out  the  savagery  of  competition; 
how  that  any  man  who  took  the  best  in  a  trade 
thereby  to  deprive  another  of  the  necessaries  of 


COMBINE  AGE  BEGINS  33 

life,  actually  amounted  to  an  effort  to  deprive  the 
other  not  only  of  a  fair  share,  but  of  life  itself, 
and  thus  made  clear  to  her  that  competition  was 
murder." 

"The  young  man  reasons  well,  but  why  did  he 
not  turn  reformer  himself  and  tell  the  people 
sooner?" 

"Daughter  was  also  surprised  at  his  seeming  in- 
difference until  he  had  explained  to  her  over  and 
over  again  that  it  was  not  a  matter  of  reform  at 
all,  but  one  of  business  common  sense,  that  share- 
holders in  a  corporation  are  not  reformers,  but  a 
business  association  organized  to  help,  not  to  hin- 
der one  another,  being  logically  the  exact  antithe- 
sis of  competition;  hence,  how  can  an  antithesis 
be  a  reform*?  Reform  means  amended,  that's  all; 
Combine  means  set  agoing  in  exactly  an  oppo- 
site direction." 

"Did  he  give  the  reason  why  moneyless  men, 
such  as  I  am,  could  not  enter  his  incorporation?" 

"Yes,  he  explained  that  moneyless  men  had 
made  a  dreadful  mistake  themselves  in  supposing 
that  they  were  not  wanted,  or  could  not  enter  a 
corporation  in  America.  Corporations,  he  said, 
had  always  been  made  up  of  a  few  kindred  minds 
— business  men  who  could  see  a  mutual  business 


34  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

interest  and  aim  at  it,  sometimes  only  a  few  men, 
at  other  times  thousands  of  men — and  there  was 
nothing  in  the  world  to  hinder  all  Americans  from 
entering  one  and  the  same  corporation  except  their 
own  blindness.  And  now  that  a  corporation  de- 
signed to  include  all  Americans  was  proposed,  he 
believed  that  every  American,  rich  and  poor, 
would  see  that  it  is  to  his  or  her  financial  self  in- 
terest to  voluntarily  rush  into  it." 

"What  a  stupendous  corporation." 

"Yes,  but  as  I  see  it  now,  no  more  stupendous 
than  a  government  of,  for  and  by  all  the  people, 
of  which  said  corporation  will  be  but  a  counter- 
part, though,  as  he  explained,  by  no  means  a  part. 
While  daughter  was  telling  me  all  this  today,  I 
saw  that  Combine  would  naturally  be  willing  to 
admit  us, — to  admit  all  Americans — for  then  all 
opposition  to  him  would  naturally  be  taken  away, 
as  all  opposition  naturally  came  from  the  outside ; 
and  by  all  being  included,  would  logically  take 
away  all  antagonism  to  Combine.  Don't  you  think 
so  too,  husband?" 

"Yes,  but  I  am  especially  pleased  that  you 
argue  all  these  points  so  well — you,  of  all  others, 
that  I  feared  would  be  hardest  for  me  to  convince 
— for  I  must  tell  you  now,  that  I  am  not  only  con- 


COMBINE  AGE  BEGINS  35 

vinced  of  the  rectitude  of  Combine,  after  I  have 
permitted  myself  to  ponder  over  his  real  charac- 
ter, but  also  of  his  business  discretion  in  not 
recommending  a  corporation  of,  for  and  by  all 
the  people.  I  see  now  if  he  had  offered  the  least 
argument  for  such  a  corporation  his  motives 
would  have  been  impuned, — misconstrued — and 
his  well  meant  effort  would  have  defeated  the 
end  in  view  or  been  worse  than  useless,  so  his  only 
way  was  to  be  quiet  and  show  by  object  lessons 
how  well  he  could  succeed  by  following  a  plain 
common  sense  business  system;  and  later  the  suc- 
cess of  the  full  fledged  idea  would  show  to  all  the 
people  that  they  too  could  succeed,  not  only  as 
well  as  little  corporations  had  done,  but  far  bet- 
ter than  even  Standard  Oil  or  any  other  of  the 
greater  corporations,  as  much  better  as  the  whole 
is  greater  than  any  of  its  parts.  I  have  heard  you, 
now  I  must  hear  daughter  speak  her  piece,  plead- 
ing for  a  lover  as  you  have  so  well  done  for  a 
daughter  and  prospective  son-in-law.  Just  say  to 
her  that  on  her  account  I  will  agree  to  listen  to 
what  she  may  have  to  say  for  Combine  tomorrow 
night." 

"Very  good;  no  doubt  she  will  have  another 
phase  of  Combine's  character,  a  view  in  which 


36  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

there  is  no  prejudice,  to  offer  you  in  reconciliation. 
Rest  assured  she  will  make  the  greatest  effort  of 
her  life,  because  she  still  thinks  as  I  thought  when 
I  began  to  try  to  convince  you  tonight, — that  you 
endured  Combine  only  on  daughter's  account. 
That  you  respected  him  for  his  own  intrinsic 
worth  never  occurred  to  me." 

"Let  me  say,  wife,  that  no  man  that  has  hon- 
estly tried  to  understand  Combine's  ideas  for  a 
day  can  possibly  refrain  from  admiring  him  on 
his  own  merits." 

"Well,  let  her  plead  for  him  then  and  we  both 
will  listen." 

"Yes,  and  would  it  not  be  instructive  to  after- 
wards hear  him  on  his  own  behalf  and  hers^" 

"Agreed;  this  part  of  the  program  must  be 
your  secret  and  mine,  and  then  after  that,  hus- 
band, we  all  will  want  to  hear  what  you  have  to 
say  in  Combine's  favor." 


CHAPTER  III 

GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE 

"Daughter  wishes  to  see  us  together  in  her  room 
this  evening." 

"Does  it  not  seem  strange — a  little  formal — 
for  you  and  me  to  put  on  our  company  clothes  and 
manners  to  call  upon  any  one  in  our  own  house — - 
much  more  on  our  own  daughter?" 

"Yes,  it  does  seem  strange  to  us,  but  it's  passing 
strange  to  her — she  never  trembled  at  our  pres- 
ence before." 

"Does  she  think  us  to  be  mad?" 

"No,  not  that,  but  she  feels  that  we  must  be 
reconciled  to  her  marriage — her  future  happiness, 
her  fate  depends  upon  our  consent.  She  feels  the 
crisis  has  now  come ;  she  realizes  now,  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life,  that  she  stands  alone — apart  from 
us, — and  yet,  not  where  the  gallantry  of  Combine 
can  give  her  his  helping  hand.  [There  comes  to 
each  of  us  epochs  in  life  where  we  must  stand 

37 


38  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

alone.]  We  must  not  delay  to  give  her  a  chance 
to  defend  her  infatuation  for  Combine  and  gain 
the  reconciliation  from  us  that  she  so  much  de- 


sires." 


"My  voice  almost  fails  to  come  and  if  I  could 
speak  I  do  not  know  what  to  say  first — yet  I  feel 
encouraged  to  believe  by  these  warm  kisses  and 
tears  that  you  do  not  hate  me,  even  if  you  can 
never  love  me  again ;  but  if,  after  you  have  heard 
me  stammer  through,  you  then  decide  to  send  me 
away  without  your  blessing,  I  will  go  loving  you 
still.  I  tried  to  make  my  defense  to  mother,  with 
what  effect  I  am  still  unable  to  tell.  I  only  know 
that  I  tried  to  tell  her  something  of  the  nobility 
and  gallantry  of  Combine,  but  I  am  conscious, 
father,  that  this  view  of  his  character  will  not 
particularly  appeal  to  you.  I  somehow  think  you 
will  appreciate  another  view  point,  'Home' — his 
financial  ability  to  make  and  maintain  a  home. 
Do  not  ask  me,  'have  not  mother  and  I  given  you 
a  home*?7  or  chide  me  for  seeking  to  leave  it  for 
another,  though  it  be  more  elegantly  furnished. 
I  know  it  does  seem  ungrateful  to  you,  yet  if  I 
can  get  my  voice  to  tell  you  that  I  am  grateful, 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE      •         39 

and  get  you  to  see  how,  and  believe  me — well,  I 

must  do  it. 

#         *         *         *         *         #         * 

"I,  girl  like,  have  thought  out  a  home  of  my 
own — it  has  frequently  been  my  day  dream.  I 
do  not  know  that  this  is  unusual  for  girls  and  wo- 
men, but  as  for  me  I  have  returned  to  it  as  a  bird 
to  its  nest,  one  of  its  own  building  and  that  of  its 
mate.  Just  why  I  have  associated  Combine  with 
my  home  building  I  cannot  explain,  or  why  I  per- 
mitted myself  to  love  him  at  all,  without  first  ask- 
ing your  permission  as  I  did  in  other  things,  I  can- 
not account  for  it.  I  cannot  tell  whether  I  loved 
him  because  he  was  so  very  able  to  help  me  build 
a  home,  or  because  loving  him  first  inspired  me  to 
want  to  make  a  home  for  him.  I  have  entirely 
failed  to  analyze  my  own  feelings;  certain  I  am 
only  that  my  longing  was  for  him,  in  a  home  of 
our  very  own,  but  safe  from  a  competitor.  This 
safety  Combine  only,  of  all  men,  can  ever  guar- 
antee. Pardon  me,  father,  for  reminding  you  and 
mother  of  what  I  have  so  frequently  heard  you 
complain  of,  namely,  that  never  while  compe- 
tition endured,  can  any  man  be  sure  of  continuing 
to  own,  his  home.  I  need  not  grieve  you  and 
mother  by  referring  to  the  loss  of  our  beautiful 


40  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

home  some  years  ago,  or  of  the  frequent  recurring 
of  losses  in  business  from  competitors,  who  could 
and  did  out  scheme  you,  I  mean  only  to  assure  you 
that  this  kind  of  grief  can  never  come  to  me  after 
our  marriage.  Combine  makes  me  sure  of  my 
home,  by  making  every  other  American  sure  of  a 
home;  one  that  pleases  each  of  them  just  as  well 
as  my  home  pleases  me,  then  you  see,  Father,  no 
one  will  want  my  home,  any  more  than  I  will 
want  theirs — each  bird  will  love  its  own  nest  best, 
and  no  bird  has  any  use  for  more  than  one  nest." 

"Are  you  sure,  daughter,  that  you  are  not  at- 
tracted to  Combine  only  because  he  is  rich  and 
sure,  as  you  say,  to  ever  keep  his  wealth,  rather 
than  by  his  innate  manliness?" 

"It  is  not  easy,  mother,  for  me  to  tell  just  why 
I  do  love  Combine,  yet  I  somehow  know  that  I 
do;  and  the  fact  that  he  has  wealth  and  financial 
ability  and  mental  accumen  to  always  be  able  to 
keep  his  wealth,  together  with  his  innate  manli- 
ness makes  him  all  the  more  lovable,  so  it  seems 
to  me.  Cannot  I  love  him  even  better,  mother, 
if  the  fear  of  poverty  is  removed,  which  you  have 
told  me  frequently,  has  been  the  bane  of  your  life? 
With  Combine  by  my  side  and  competition  a 
thing  of  the  past,  I  cannot  have  this  bane  of  pov- 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  41 

erty  to  haunt  me,  as  it  has  haunted  you  and 
father.  Now,  father,  if  Combine  can  and  does 
eliminate  competition  and  can  stop  industrial  war- 
fare and  bring  about  industrial  peace  and  good 
will  to  all  Americans,  then  cannot  my  parents 
permit  their  daughter  to  bring  to  them  such  a 
son?' 

"Yes,  if  she  can  fully  show  that  these  claims 
for  him  are  true." 

"I  feel  assured  by  that  YES,  it  is  your  admis- 
sion that  you  do  not  hate  me  for  loving  Combine 
and  encourages  me  to  believe  that  before  long  I 
will  succeed  in  persuading  you  to  love  him  too, 
at  least  you  have  made  it  easier  for  me  to  pro- 
ceed to  show  that  the  hardships  of  which  we  have 
suffered  is  because  of  the  savagery  of  free  compe- 
tition and  not  because  of  Combine's  meanness; 
and  I  am  sure  the  moment  that  I  can  get  you  to 
see  Combine  as  he  really  is,  you  will  admire  him. 
He  is  acting  financially  on  the  very  best  au- 
thority. 

"What  authority?" 

"Pardon  my  confusion  and  want  of  voice, 
father,  but  does  he  not  get  his  authority  from  the 
government — from  us — we  gave  him  corporation 
papers,  did  we  not?  Is  he  not  doing  business  un- 


42  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

der  our  name  and  by  our  consent  and  is  not  his 
success  in  business  his  only  crime  (if  crime  it  may 
be  called)  ?" 

"Do  you  mean  to  infer,  Goddess,  that  simply 
because  Combine  succeeds  in  everything  he  under- 
takes better  than  we  have  ever  done  under  free 
competition  that  we  are  only  jealous  of  him?" 

"Excuse  my  stammering,  mother;  you  put  the 
fact  more  harshly  than  I  would  have  dared  to  do. 
I  am  only  sure  that  Combine  wishes  you  no  ill, 
and  is  doing  business  just  as  every  American 
would  do  business  if  he  were  in  Combine's  place; 
and  that  Combine  really  longs  to  give  every 
American  the  same  equal  chance ;  and  that  having 
us  already  in  his  power  is  not — cannot  be — 
jealous  of  us.  Then,  mother,  would  it  not  be  un- 
becoming a  great  strong  athlete  that  he  is  to  be 
jealous  of  helpless  infancy,  defenseless  women, 
or  feeble  men?  Through  the  timid  ignorance  of 
the  first  and  the  force  of  habit  of  the  last,  still 
refusing  his  offered — becoming  hand — Combine 
surely  proposed  to  secure  future  abundance  for  all 
not  a  part  but  all  Americans  and  that  without 
financial  loss  to  any.  Combine  means  just  that — 
I  know  he  means  just  that  though  you  may  not 
yet  understand  him  or  me." 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  43 

"I  put  the  question  again,  that  I  may  be  sure  of 
your  answer — are  we  to  believe  that  Combine 
really  prefers  to  have  all  the  people  to  become 
shareholders?" 

"Yes,  father,  he  certainly  does;  I  told  mother 
so  today,  but  she  did  not  seem  to  comprehend  me 
or  him." 

"I  confess  now  that  I  believe  you,  but  this 
point  is  incomprehensible  to  the  people  and  had 
been  to  me  until  today  and  we  will  have  to  repeat 
it  time  and  again." 

"Yes,  I  know;  it  seems  like  an  idle  tale  to  the 
poor  man  to  tell  him  that  Combine's  only  propo- 
sition is,  that  the  now  poor  is  to  become  an  equal 
shareholder  in  all  the  productive  property  of 
America.  But,  father,  is  it  not  equality  that  the 
word  American  stands  for,  and  have  we  not  had 
political  equality  for  a  long  time?  Why  not  now 
take  another  step  and  become  financially  equal, 
yet  not  touch  communism.  Does  not  each  and 
every  American  in  himself  possess  now  equally 
all  the  protection  that  the  government  can  pos- 
sibly give?  We  understand  that  we  are  politi- 
cally equal  without  regard  to  wealth — and  that 
on  election  day  one  vote  stands  for  as  much  as 
another,  does  it  not?  Being  now  equal  politically 


44  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

and  this  equality  as  an  object  lesson,  can  we  not 
all  see  that  financial  equality  is  similar  to  that 
political  equality,  a  counter-part  of  what  we  al- 
ready have?  I  must  confess  that  I  did  not  see 
this  similarity  or  the  resemblance  of  financial 
equality  with  political  equality  until  Combine 
went  over  the  matter  with  me  at  the  Democratic 
Convention  in  St.  Louis.  I  asked  him  to  tell  me 
plainly  why  he  was  so  anxious  to  control  that 
Convention  and  prevent  Hearst  from  being  nomi- 
nated. He  kindly  made  it  plain  to  me  that  all 
financial  inequality  had  grown  out  of  competition 
— that  is,  the  effort  of  one  man  to  get  more  than 
an  equal  share  of  property — and  I  remember  how 
a  simple  question  he  asked  me  opened  my  eyes — 
it  was :  'What  if  one  American  tried  to  get  more 
than  the  equal  protection  of  the  flag?'  I  then  saw 
that  our  safety  positively  was  in  our  equality  and 
that  it  must  become  our  safety  financially,  and 
also  it  must  be  an  absolute  equality.  If  one  little 
overweight  was  allowed  to  one  American  the 
beam  of  the  scale  would  be  turned,  and  then  there 
would  be  nothing  to  hinder  one  man  from  getting 
it  all  if  he  could  and  leaving  nothing  for  the  other. 
After  I  saw  this  fact  clearly,  as  every  American, 
so  it  seems  to  me,  must  see  it,  and  that  the  very 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  45 

moment  (I  speak  respectfully)  he  takes  off  his 
green  spectacles — 'prejudice' — I  saw  another  fact 
quite  as  important.  That  no  American,  no  matter 
how  good  socially,  religiously  or  politically,  was 
advocating  this  equality  but  Combine,  and  he  by 
his  actions  only.  He  knows  that  the  settlement  of 
the  labor  trouble  does  not  come  before  any  of  these 
tribunals,  nothing  will  satisfy  the  American  spirit 
but  this  financial  equality,  nothing  more  is  re- 
quired." 

"You  see,  father,  that  instead  of  each  Ameri- 
can striving  to  get  a  fair  division  of  property  by 
the  individual  owning  literally  nothing,  as  the 
socialist  proposes,  that  is  letting  the  government 
or  the  municipality — the  public — own  it  all. 
Combine  proposes  that  the  individual,  own  every- 
thing distinctively,  as  the  individual  citizen  owns 
all  the  protection  that  the  flag  can  give." 

*  >jc  *  iK  *  ^  * 

"This  industrial  equality  of  individual  Ameri- 
cans will  be  consummated  by  our  marriage.  I 
wish  to  remind  you,  mother,  that  marriage  is 
more  than  partnership ;  it  includes  everything.  A 
simple  partnership  might  be  broken;  the  real  in- 
terest of  each  partner  in  a  business  is  not  the  en- 
riching his  partner  particularly,  but  to  get  rich 


46  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

himself,  and  if  need  be  at  the  expense  of  his  part- 
ner. Not  so  in  marriage — what  belongs  to  the 
wife,  belongs  to  the  husband;  and  what  belongs 
to  the  husband  belongs  to  the  wife;  this  is,  this 
must  and  will  be  exactly  true  with  both,  and  all 
the  individual  shareholders  after  Combine  and  I 
are  married.  I  repeat,  each  of  us  will  own  all  the 
productive  property  in  America  as  certainly  as  we 
now  own  all  the  protection  of  the  flag.  Each  of 
us  can  truthfully  say  our  R.  R.,  our  farms,  our 
stocks  and  feel  the  ownership,  not  so  if  the  gov- 
ernment owned  it  and  we  play  make  believe. 
There  is  no  make  believe  about  ownership  in  mar- 
riage or  Combine,  it's  actual;  it's  all  in  the  fam- 
ily ;  cheating  or  taking  the  best  in  a  trade  becomes 
unthinkable;  graft  becomes  impossible;  the  wife 
cannot  cheat  or  steal  from  her  husband,  can  she? 
Neither  can  one  shareholder  from  another  in  Com- 
bine. A  man  will  not  bruise  himself,  will  he? 
It  would  be  suicide  to  cheat  an  actual  shareholder. 
Combine  shareholders  dare  not  cheat  each  other 
any  more,  mother,  than  for  you  to  cheat  father. 
In  doing  so  you  would  only  cheat  yourself.  What 
belongs  to  one,  very  properly  belongs  to  the  other, 
as  in  marriage ;  so  in  this  great  corporation,  gover- 
ment  ownership  is  false  ownership.  I  am  not  tell- 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  47 

ing  you  these  things,  father,  for  you  already 
know  that  Combine  ownership  is  real  ownership 
and  a  home  becomes  a  real  home  to  keep ;  it  can  no 
more  be  taken  away  from  us  than  our  American 
Liberty.  Thus,  I  am  only  reminding  you,  that 
Combine  is  not  as  bad  as  you  and  mother  have 
been  thinking  him  to  be;  but  good,  very  good  as 
good  as  I  am  and  will  ever  try  to  be.  When  once 
you  get  to  understand  him.  You  will  see  he  is  not 
only  able  but  willing  to  give  every  American  a 
home.  I  want  to  assure  you,  mother,  that  Com- 
bine has  no  planning  that  does  not  include  you  and 
father;  his  intention  and  delight  is  to  help  all 
equally,  and  equally  is  the  American  way — that  is 
to  gently  and  agreeably  put  us  all  where  we  are 
secure  and  abundantly  able  to  help  ourselves, 
which  each  American  prefers  to  do.  Let  me  also 
remind  you,  that  our  marriage  dispenses  with  com- 
petition, and  the  moment  we  dispense  with  com- 
petition, that  moment  we  dispense  with  the 
necessity  of  charity;  and  no  American  wants  to 
be  an  object  of  charity.  I  can  see  how  you  both 
misunderstood  Combine  and  I.  You  fondly 
called  me  'Goddess,'  The  Goddess  of  Liberty/ 
Liberty  enlighting  the  World.'  When  a  child 
I  may  indeed  have  acted  like  a  spoiled  child 


48  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

(as  England  called  me),  with  all  this  mild  flat- 
tery, but  I  know  somehow  that  I  have  now  passed 
the  childhood  age,  and  I  must  now  act  the  part  of 
of  woman  grown.  Combine  and  I  have  grown 
up  under  two  distinct  roofs,  yet  associate  with 
and  by  your  consent  and  approval  even  until 
now,  when  we  have  arrived  at  marriageable  age. 
I  refer  to  this  fact  that  you  have  permitted  us 
to  associate,  not  to  chide  you,  but  to  excuse  us 
for  falling  in  love.  We  understand  each  other 
and  our  future  marriage  has  run  through  our 
minds  since  childhood;  and  just  previous  to  my 
Republican  Convention  (mine  up  to  that  date 
1904)  in  Chicago  our  betrothal  was  then  finally 
consummated,  I  yielded  to  his  proposal  and  my 
Convention  became  our  Convention  then  and  there. 
We  afterwards  attended  the  Democratic  Conven- 
tion in  St  Louis,  hand  in  glove;  and  feel  as  com- 
pletely one  now  as  we  will  after  the  usual  nuptials 
for  which  we  are  bound  to  wait  for  your  consent." 

"Do  you  not  yet  think,  Goddess,  that  it  would 
have  been  more  prudent  for  Combine  to  have 
stayed  away  from  the  St.  Louis  Convention  and 
let  Mr.  Bryan  and  Mr.  Hearst,  and  old  line  Dem- 
ocrats, run  that  Convention?" 

"No,  mother,  it  was  simply  a  matter  of  expense 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  49 

to  shareholders.  Combine  saw  that  it  would  cost 
less  to  buy  the  Democratic  Convention — as  he  had 
the  Republican  Convention — and  ever  after  own 
both." 

"You  amaze  me,  daughter,  with  the  noncha- 
lant, conclusive  way  you  speak  of  buying  men — 
women — Conventions,  etc.,  as  though  everything 
was  for  sale.  Do  you  infer  that  Combine  has 
bought  our  Goddess  and  now  proposes  to  buy 
Mother  and  me?' 

"Do  not  be  offended,  father,  and  let  me  ex- 
plain as  softly  as  I  can.  Christian  civilization  is 
approaching  the  industrial  problem  from  exactly 
the  opposite  direction  from  what  anti-monopolists 
thought  it  must.  Monopoly  was  not  understood 
and  supposed  to  be  bad.  May  it  not  be  a  good 
thing,  even  if  it  included  all  the  productive  prop- 
erty in  America?  Providing,  of  course,  it  also 
included  all  the  people  as  equal  shareholders.  I 
tried  to  make  this  fact  plain  once  before  tonight 
but  state  it  again  here,  to  say,  to  gently  quiet  your 
misapprehension  and  in  connection,  that  as  Com- 
bine is  engaged  only  in  making  a  living,  it  clearly 
must  be  a  matter  of  business  to  look  at  the  cost. 
With  just  that  purpose  in  view  and  in  just  that 
sense  Combine  undertook  to  buy  immunity  from 


50  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

unjust  persecution  with  the  outlay  of  as  small  a 
sum  of  the  shareholders'  money  as  possible,  so 
I  meant  by  buying,  not  the  human  body,  but  the 
influence  of  those  Conventions  in  the  interest  of 
the  shareholders.  And  now  that  the  majority  of 
Americans  have  got  far  enough  advanced  in  civil- 
ization to  see  and  say  there  is  no  harm  in  buying, 
that  they  wrould  do  so  themselves,  it  is  not  very 
far  until  all  Americans  can  see  and  say  there  is  not 
only  great,  good  business  sense  in  it,  but  the  ful- 
ness of  commercial  wisdom  in  it;  and  then  a  legal 
corporation  of,  for,  and  by  all  Americans  must 
come  to  pass  as  immediate,  as  instantaneous  as  a 
marriage  ceremony.  Your  'Goddess'  of  Liberty 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  this  ascendency  of  indus- 
try up  to  where  she  now  sees  to  be,  its  proper 
sphere.  The  greater  the  industrial  combine,  the 
greater  the  need  of  a  great  and  reliable  govern- 
ment. Combine  needs  a  strong  government,  much 
more  than  a  lot  of  barbarians,  or  property-less 
people,  does  he  not?  They  would  need  no  gov- 
ernment at  all;  anarchy  and  poverty  are  twin 
barbarians,  but  proprietors,  Americans,  of  vast 
property  will  ever  need  your  Goddess  as  a  help- 
mate, so  never  fear  that  Combine  wants  me  to 
destroy  me.  And  if  he  buys  Conventions  and  men, 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  51 

rest  assured  it  is  to  make  better  men  of  them,  to 
teach  them  not  to  fight  like  savages  as  so-called 
civilized  Americans  have  been  doing  in  all  busi- 
ness affairs,  but  to  help  each  other  up  to  position, 
to  home,  to  plenty,  financially  able  to  be  fair. 
So,  father,  you  must  not  longer  be  amazed  at  my 
frank  admission  that  Combine  bought  both  the 
great  political  Conventions — bought  me,  I  say 
yes,  certainly,  but  not  to  make  a  slave  of  me — or 
to  destroy  me — but  to  be  his  wife — his  equal. 

"I  love  Combine  for  all  that  he  is  really  worth 
to  me;  and  know  that  he  loves  me,  for  all  that  I 
am  really  worth  to  him ;  and  we  are  convinced  that 
it  will  pay  us  both  to  get  married,  then  self- 
interest  will  put  each  American  in  the  niche  where 
each  can  be  the  most  helpful  in  making  a  living. 
To  place  all  Labor  and  all  Capital  under  one  and 
the  same  industrial  management — that  is  Com- 
bine management." 

"Please  make  it  plainer,  daughter,  answer  it 
over  again  to  me:  Does  that  mean  government 
or  public  ownership?" 

"By  no  manner  of  means,  mother;  it  means 
just  the  opposite — that  is,  it  does  mean  individ- 
ual ownership,  each  individual  American  will 
own  all,  will  have  all  he  or  she  needs — govern- 


52  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

ment  is  not  a  man  that  it  can  own;  it's  absurd  to 
say  government  ownership,  but  America  has  made 
all  the  people  equal  citizens,  and  America  now 
proposes  to  make  all  the  people  equal  share- 
holders. Nothing  less  than  absolute  equality 
could  have  satisfied  the  people  politically,  so 
nothing  less  than  absolute  industrial  equality  can 
now  or  ever  in  the  very  nature  of  things  satisfy 
Americans.  Combine  and  I,  when  married, 
father,  will  work  together;  we  will  make  each 
American  a  bonafide  shareholder.  It  will  be 
American  to  do  that;  it  will  be  to  Com- 
bine self  interest  to  do  that.  I  naturally 
would  want  him  to  make  them  equal  industrially, 
seeing  that  I  have  made  them  equal  politically. 
When  all  Americans  become  not  only  proprietors, 
but  equal  proprietors,  Collectivism  government 
ownership — public  ownership — will  be  no  longer 
thought  of  as  desirable  and  will  fade  away  like  a 
will-o-the-wisp.  In  my  faltering  way  I  have 
gone  over  my  defense  for  Combine,  and  have 
given  you  all  the  reasons  I  can  now  think  of  in  my 
flustration  for  falling  in  love  with  him." 

"I  must  say  that  your  loyal  defense  of  your 
lover,  whether  he  be  worthy  of  you  or  not,  en- 
dears you  to  us  all  the  more;  and  we  feel  that 


GODDESS  DEFENDS  COMBINE  53 

whatever  be  the  result  of  your  infatuation,  you 
are  and  will  ever  remain,  not  only  our  grown  up 
daughter,  but  enshrined  in  our  hearts  the  'God- 
dess of  Liberty'  that  we  cared  for  from  infancy 
to  this  adult  life.  And  though  she  now  accepts 
a  new  relation  we  see  that  she  still  retains  the  old 
relation.  We  believe  she  does  it  that  she  may  the 
better  perpetuate  her  loved  ones  she  now  seeks  to 
care  for  by  marrying  one  who  is  able  to  care  for 
all.  She  is  sincere.  Now  we  only  want  to  be 
satisfied  of  Combine's  sincerity;  to  feel  sure  that 
we  can  TRUST  HIM.  Sometime  in  the  near 
future  we  desire  to  hear  Combine  speak  for  him- 
self." 

"It  may  be  embarassing  to  him  to  meet  you  un- 
less I  can  assure  him  that  you  are  no  longer  bit- 
terly prejudiced  against  him." 

"You  can  assure  him,  for  us,  that  because  of  the 
scarlet  thread  connection  between  our  family  and 
his  family,  known  as  the  'Corporation  Act,'  of 
which  you  have  spoken,  we  will  give  him  a  friend- 
ly reception,  and  at  your  appointed  time  and 
place." 


CHAPTER    IV 

COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF 

"I  am  always  ready  to  speak  when  spoken  to, 
and  come  when  I  am  called,  and  am  ever  prepared 
to  give  a  reason  for  my  past  and  present  conduct 
and  intentions,  always  with  the  provision  that 
people  are  willing  to  hear  me.  Of  course  it 
would  not  be  an  act  of  discretion  on  my  part  to 
thrust  myself  forward  before  being  invited. 
Words  of  wisdom  would  then  be  received  as  mere 
chattering,  or  considered  an  intrusion — unwel- 
come and  surely  misunderstood. 

"Your  daughter  has  told  me  that  you  are  now 
ready  to  hear  me,  to  hear  what  I  have  to  say  for 
myself,  so  that  you  may  determine  whether  I 
am  a  worthy  mate  for  her.  I  know  enough  of 
your  character,  and  that  of  your  estimable  wife, 
to  understand  that  cringing  sycophancy  or  a  beg- 
ging attitude  would  not  appeal  to  you,  or  obtain 
your  approval  or  consent  to  wed  your  daughter. 

54 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  55 

I  think  myself  happy  because  I  am  thus  permitted 
to  speak  for  myself.  In  listening  to  me  personally 
you  will  be  much  better  informed  in  all  that  you 
ought  to  know  of  my  character  and  intentions 
than  through  listening  to  what  others,  prejudiced 
against  me,  are  pleased  to  say  about  me,  heresay 
evidence  is  the  cause  of  much  of  your  prejudice 
and  jealousy. 

"Permit  me  to  say  first  that  I  stand  for  the  sep- 
arate, distinct,  individual  man.  I  need  but  to 
remind  you  that  Christ  deals  with  the  individual, 
government  deals  with  the  individual.  Each  man 
naturally  stands  apart  and  alone,  eats  and  wears, 
that  is,  a  separate  and  distinct  individual.  We 
must  preserve  this  individuality  at  all  hazards. 
Any  proposition  that  in  the  least  degree  endangers 
or  compromises  this  individuality  as  does  pro- 
posed government  ownership,  public  ownership, 
socialism,  communism,  etc., — that  is,  if  you 
please,  considering  people  as  a  flock  or  herd,  is 
not  only  a  going  in  the  wrong  direction,  but  fun- 
damentally wrong  in  itself.  To  secure  united 
action  in  making  a  living,  that  is  cooperation  of 
effort  of  all  Americans,  and  yet  preserve  a  sep- 
arate and  distinct  individuality,  is  what  I  am  in 
America  for,  and  what  I  am  called  upon  to  bring 


56  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

to  pass,  that  is,  a  marriage,  not  an  amalgamation, 
but  a  marriage  of  industrial  interests  with  politi- 
cal interests,  is  a  true  solution.  This  was  intro- 
duced by  our  fathers  and  crystallized  by  them 
into  a  law  now  known  as  the  'Corporation  Act.' 
This  was  and  is  a  sacred  pledge  of  business  fealty, 
and  a  lineal  descendant  of  that  'whatsoever  ye 
would'  law,  on  which  America  itself  rests.  I 
mention  this  fact  to  show  the  relationship  between 
my  family  and  yours  (Industry  and  Politics). 
This  'Corporation  Act'  was  passed  not  only  as  a 
better  way  of  business  procedure  than  competi- 
tion, but  the  only  way  possible  to  extend  the  in- 
dividual from  self  to  five  separate  individual 
men,  who  might  thus  be  enabled  to  incorporate 
and  act  together  as  one  man,  sue  and  be  sued ;  that 
is,  become  responsible  both  'going  and  coming.' 
This  was  pertinent,  and  does  show  an  easy  way 
for  all  to  become  one  as  owners  of  all  the  pro- 
ducing property.  It  is  an  axiom  to  say  that  man 
only  is  competent  to  own  property,  as  for  example, 
brutes  do  not  own  property.  A  figure,  an  inani- 
mate object,  an  idol,  anything  that  man  can  make 
certainly  cannot  own  property.  Clearly  then  a 
man  made  government,  either  city,  state,  or  na- 
tional, as  good,  as  necessary  and  as  useful  as  they 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  57 

are  in  their  places,  can  never  be  made  competent 
to  own  property.  I  repeat  this  fact  because  it  is  the 
special  point  I  want  to  emphasize  and  have  you 
see  clearly,  for  my  life  is  wrapped  up  in  this  one 
fact.  The  question  before  the  fathers,  if  you 
please,  was :  What  plan  can  be  devised,  brought 
about  by  which  Americans  can  help  each  other  to 
'making  a  living,'  avoid  competition,  'get  together' 
and  still  each  retain,  individually,  all  of  his  or  her 
own  property  that  is  in  his  or  her  very  own  indi- 
vidual right,  so  that  no  one  under  the  flag  could 
become  lost  in  the  maze  of  Communism,  that  is 
in  public,  collective  or  government  ownership, 
that  is  lose,  partially  or  entirely,  their  individual- 
ity? The  Corporation  Act  was  the  answer,  and 
I  that  speaks  to  you  am  that  answer  in  active 
operation,  helping  all  who  are  willing  to  be 
helped.  Our  forefathers  built  better  than  they 
knew,  when  they  thought  out  and  introduced  me, 
this  Corporation  Act.  If  two  men  can  act  as  one, 
five  can  merge  and  act  as  one  —  if  so,  then 
five  thousand  men,  aye  all  Americans,  can  merge 
and  act  as  one.  Now,  if  when  five  men 
incorporate,  does  not  their  self-interest  de- 
mand that  they  select  the  most  competent  one  of 
the  five  to  manage?  So  that  self-interest  natur- 


58  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

ally  will  with  the  five  thousand,  just  so  it  will  do 
when  all  Americans  are  in  the  same  corporation. 
The  financial  self-interest  of  every  American  will 
then  demand  it. 

"What  power  is  stronger  than  financial  invest- 
ment1? Take  a  case  in  point.  Your  daughter,  up 
to  the  time  of  the  Chicago  convention,  had  been 
timid  about  entrusting  so  much  to  me,  but  finally 
agreed  that  it  was  best  for  her  to  let  me  manage 
that  convention.  I  did  so  in  the  interests  of  all 
corporations,  that  is  as  an  investment.  Then  I 
set  the  matter  so  clearly  that  it  was  also  to  her 
best  interests  to  let  me  manage  the  St.  Louis  con- 
vention. Finally,  she  permitted  me  to  manage 
that  also.  This  done,  the  combine  age,  was  in- 
augurated. All  that  is  now  lacking  to  complete  it 
is  for  all  Americans  to  become  active  shareholders 
and  enter  fully  into  their  own  inheritance.  There 
is  no  longer  any  question  but  that  I  am  to  control 
hereafter  all  political  parties  as  I  would  an  in- 
vestment and  distinctly  in  my  own  financial  in- 
terest, the  interest  of  corporation.  This  para- 
mount place  is  the  proper  place  for  industry  to 
occupy.  The  moment  that  Judge  Parker  was 
nominated  for  President,  that  moment  all  Indus- 
try took  this,  its  proper  place,  thereafter  to  be 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  59 

superior  to  politics,  as  it  naturally  is  and  should 
be,  that  is  outranking  government.  Combine  is 
now  the  most  potent  factor  in  American  affairs, 
and  government  will  naturally  be  administered 
for  shareholders.  This  is  not  self-praise,  it  is 
fact,  and  that  you  may  understand  me  fully,  I 
am  getting  these  unvarnished  facts  before  you. 
Love  and  affection  do  not  count,  are  not  to  be  con- 
sidered here.  These  will  spring  up  and  grow  in 
the  soil  of  a  fair  square  deal,  but  they  cannot 
spring  up,  much  less  grow  in  the  hearts  of  com- 
petitors. Lovers  do  not  continue  lovers  very  long; 
no,  not  even  friends  who  try  to  cheat  each  other 
or  take  from  each  other  the  best  in  a  trade.  My 
first  and  only  object  is  to  prove  to  you  that  I  am 
intent  only  in  bringing  about  a  system  of  business 
affairs  in  which  every  American  will  have  a  fair 
and  square  business  deal.  This  gives  brotherly 
love,  salvation,  and  politics  a  fair  chance,  which 
they  do  not  have  now.  The  proper  adjustment 
of  the  Combine  idea,  to  make  it  fit  the  person  of 
each  and  every  American  will  take  time;  but 
where  there  is  a  will  there  is  a  way.  The  self  in- 
terest of  shareholders  takes  away  all  stubborn- 
ness, but  we  have  now  passed  this  crisis,  and  are 
emphatically  in  the  Combine  age,  regardless  of 


60  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

who  is  hereafter  elected  to  any  political  offices. 
Everything,  both  political  and  industrial,  must 
now  bend  before  a  'system,'  the  Combine  man- 
agement, as  before  a  decree  of  God,  for  which 
all  the  people  inwardly  say  'Amen.'  Proof  of 
this,  my  prophecy,  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  every 
American  now  really  wants  and  has  for  a  long 
time  wanted,  to  be  in  the  corporation,  so  the 
thing  to  do  is  for  every  American  to  step  quickly 
into  his  place  for  a  general  uplift  of  Americans." 

"You  amaze  me  by  the  authority  with  which 
you  speak." 

"Cannot  I  speak  with  authority  when  I  am  con- 
scious that  I  have  now,  and  am  hereafter  ever  able 
to  keep  that  authority.  I  recognize  the  lovely, 
feminine,  delicate  character  of  your  Goddess  of 
Liberty  that  I  hope  to  marry  in  due  time.  I  see 
in  her  a  creature  that  is  to  be  protected  rather  than 
to  protect,  else  why  do  we  intuitively  call  politics 
'her,'  and  think  of  politics  as  feminine  in  charac- 
ter, as  a  goddess,  a  Goddess  of  Liberty.  Of 
course,  it  falls  to  industry,  i.  e.,  to  Combine,  to 
one  that  is  able,  to  one,  who  is  by  the  very  nature 
of  things  created  by  the  God  of  American  progress 
to  sustain  her,  to  shield  her,  to  protect  her,  to 
defend  her.  Does  it  not  rationally  follow  that  if 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  61 

I  am  a  defender,  I  must  need  have  a  tangible  ob- 
ject to  defend?  So  I  am  not  complete  without 
her  any  more  than  she  is  complete  without  me; 
she  ranks  naturally  in  the  capacity  of  a  helpmeet. 
I  have  said  enough." 

"You  have  sustained  your  claim.  I  admit  that 
you  have  won  your  case.  Your  plea  is  unanswer- 
able. I  am  surprised  that  I  have  not  seen  you  in 
your  true  character  before." 

jji^*^*^**^ 

•  "My  first  question,  now  that  we  are  on  speak- 
ing terms,  is:  Has  not  our  prejudice  against  you, 
Combine,  seemed  very  strange  to  you?" 

"Your  greeting  is  somewhat  embarassing,  but 
as  I  have  now  won  your  confidence,  this  fact 
gives  me  a  freedom  of  expression  that  was  impos- 
sible until  now,  and  now,  only  because  you  will 
listen  to  me  as  your  son,  it  becomes  worth  while 
now  for  me  to  speak.  Each  and  all  of  us  will 
naturally  hereafter  have  a  family  interest  in  the 
smaller  as  well  as  the  larger  matters.  I  must,  also, 
be  less  abrupt,  more  courteous  in  my  behavior, 
and  kindly  in  my  language,  and  tone  of  voice. 
Now,  to  answer  your  question.  Your  long  con- 
tinued opposition  to  me  has  indeed  been  a  stand- 
ing wonder.  I  have  seen  that  government  was 


62  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

but  a  helpmeet  to  industry,  and  that  you 
were  deifying  Goddess,  the  brilliancy  of  po- 
litical liberty  to  the  shameful  neglect  of 
industry,  who  in  his  everyday  plodding, 
in  the  garb  of  a  workman,  making  a  living 
for  you  and  her.  But  his  love  for  her  and  his  own 
bread  and  butter  kept  him  faithfully  at  the  mill, 
ever  working,  until  such  a  time  as  the  present, 
when  you  would  not  only  listen  to  him  but  see 
for  yourself,  for  such  is  the  perversity  of  human 
nature  that  man  cannot  be  driven.  So  I  had  to 
patiently  abide  my  time,  and  wait  until  I  was 
financially  able  to  offer  you  a  money  inducement. 
There  is  an  axiom  that  says  'every  man  has  his 
price,3  a  money  value.  That  has  been  practically 
true  under  competition.  It  can  have  no  basis  in 
an  age  where  men  are  already  equal,  can  it5?  Yet 
it  is  to  the  interest  of  the  shareholders  to  speak  of 
price.  I  take  it,  however,  to  be  the  interest  of 
the  shareholders  to  take  and  use  every  apt  expres- 
sion, and  'to  buy'  is  one  of  them.  'Money'  is 
another.  The  thought  behind  the  expression  is 
all  important.  The  sense  in  which  I  wish  to  be 
understood  is  better  expressed  by  the  word  'in- 
ducement.' All  success  has  come  to  me  by  offer- 
ing inducements.  I  expect  to  win  the  hearty  co- 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  63 

operation  of  all  Americans  by  offering  them  suf- 
ficient inducements.  That  is  the  way  I  won,  or 
bought,  the  price  I  paid  for  the  Republican  con- 
vention in  Chicago,  and  afterwards  the  Demo- 
cratic convention  in  St.  Louis,  and  when  won,  or 
bought,  I,  for  the  first  time,  was  sure  Goddess  was 
mine  (of  course  I  was  as  certainly  hers),  such  was 
the  confidence  we  had  in  each  other.  We  boldly 
came  out  into  the  open  together.  By  inducement 
we  secured  the  endorsement  of  Judge  Parker.  So 
discreetly  did  we  behave  ourselves  that  Mr.  Bryan 
and  Mr.  Hearst,  who  led  the  opposition  against 
me,  acknowledged  that  our  inducement  was  suf- 
ficient to  justify  them  in  coming  out  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Parker,  my  candidate. 

"I  said  in  the  beginning  that  I  was  ready  to 
give  a  reason  for  my  past  and  present  conduct  as 
soon  as  you  or  the  people  were  willing  to  listen. 

"Yes,  after  the  two  great  political  parties  both 
publicly  indorsed  me,  it  was  a  matter  of  indiffer- 
ence to  me  whether  Mr.  Roosevelt  or  Mr.  Parker 
were  elected. 

No;  it  would  not  be  proper  for  me  to  say  that 
Capitalists  are  the  brainiest  Americans.  I  can 
only  say  they  act  like  it;  they  obtain  the  chief 
financial  good  by  helping  each  other. 


64  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

Yes,  certainly;  with  no  one  of  the  smaller 
parties  able  to  make  a  significant  issue  against  me, 
I  feel  now  that  never  again  will  there  be  a  politi- 
cal party  to  oppose  me.  The  Democratic  party 
was  my  only  antagonist.  It  may  make  a  demon- 
strative bluff  here  and  there,  but  it  will  never 
actually  want  to  oppose  me  again,  as  it  now  be- 
longs to  me,  and  when  it  is  understood  to  be  my 
true  disposition  to  help  all  Americans,  they  too 
will  all  comprehend  why  your  daughter,  the 
bright,  clear-eyed  Goddess  of  Liberty,  accepted 
my  proposal  of  marriage. 

"Yes,  ma'am,  when  all  Americans  are  ready  to 
accept  my  inducement  of  an  assured  home  of  their 
very  own,  a  cottage  and  land,  a  home  of  their  own 
designing,  a  home  that  is  assured  to  each  and 
that  as  surely  as  citizenship  is  assured  to  each, 
and  let  me  add  and  in  much  the  same  way  and  for 
the  same  vital  reason,  my  marriage  with  Liberty 
presages  this  and  it  is  possible,  probable  and  ob- 
tainable only  by  my  ability  to  help,  to  designate 
the  niche  that  every  American  will  be  enabled  to 
select  for  himself. 

"Yes,  sir,  this  is  assured  by  my  methods  of 
definite  business  planning,  that  is  to  find  wherein 
he  or  she  can  best  help  maintain  the  home  and  the 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  65 

little  ones  there,  weak  either  physically  or  men- 
tally, children  of  any  age  or  size  yet  children  en- 
titled to  be  'helped  up,'  and  not  downed  by  a 
merciless  competitor,  trampled  upon  and  their  in- 
capacity, be  it  either  mental  or  physical,  taken  ad- 
vantage of  by  vicious  competitors  as  has  been 
done  and  would  logically  ever  continue  to  be  done 
as  long  as  competition  endures,  that  is,  until  I 
have  completely  supplanted  industrial  competi- 
tion much  as  America  once  destroyed  monarchy 
by  substituting  its  antithesis,  a  republic. 

"Yes,  some  well-meaning  Americans  have  pro- 
posed to  drive,  they  have  not  understood  that  all 
men  are  free,  moral  agents  after  all,  hence  cannot 
be  driven  to  do  things,  no,  not  even  a  thing  that 
is  clearly  to  their  own  interest  to  do.  Men  can 
be  led  by  inducements  only,  and  that  inducement 
must  be  so  great  as  to  overbalance  the  force  of 
habit  inherited  from  a  competitive  or  barbarous 
age.  Take  the  Prohibition  party.  The  appalling 
fact  that  drink  claims  a  hundred  thousand  victims 
annually  and  makes  inebriates  of  good  men  and 
women,  appears  to  them,  and  has  caused  that 
party  to  say,  and  to  think,  too,  that  it  can  stop 
the  evil  by  sheer  force  forgetting  that  one  force 
may  neutralize  another.  The  manufacture  and 


66  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

sale  of  intoxicants  is  one  upon  which  millions  of 
people  depend  for  a  living,  and  that  men  opposed 
to  Prohibition  say  that  it  is  not  fair  to  turn  these 
people  out  of  their  livelihood,  to  crowd  into  other 
avenues  of  life  for  which  they  are  not  fitted  or  to 
invade  fields  of  activity  already  crowded. 
Thoughtfully,  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  in- 
toxicants is  wrong,  but  it  is  a  business  matter, 
and  as  I  am  the  synonym  for  business,  I  must  take 
hold  of  the  entire  temperance  problem  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  deal  with  it  as  a  financial  business 
proposition  and  clearly  and  definitely  establish  its 
meets  and  bounds." 

"Please  go  on  and  tell  us  definitely  your  plans." 
"If  partyism  cannot  reach  the  case,  neither  is  it 
a  religious  prerogative.  It  requires  a  business 
board  of  health  operating  for  all,  not  a  part  of, 
but  all  the  people.  Not  only  has  the  manufacture 
and  sale  of  intoxicating  liquor  enabled  many  thou- 
sands to  'get  a  living,'  but  it  has  also  prevented 
many  thousands  from  getting  a  living. 

"I  have  seen  that  up-to-date  society  has  had  no 
supervising  hand  to  restrain  and  guide,  only  to 
punish.  Now,  seriously,  what  could  be  said  of 
a  parent  that  set  traps  all  around,  and  then  told 
their  children  not  to  touch  them4?  Is  it  enough 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  67 

to  tell  them  not  to  touch  them ;  or  to  punish  them 
if  they  do*?  Goddess  and  I  can,  and  we  will,  take 
the  traps  away  and  set  no  more.  Why1?  Be- 
cause it  becomes  the  self-interest  of  every  share- 
holder (and  every  American  naturally  becomes  a 
shareholder) .  A  temperate  life  is  necessary  to  good 
health,  is  it  not?  And  good  health  is  not  only  an 
asset,  but  the  best  paying  asset  of  this  American 
corporation.  It  also  becomes  not  only  the  duty, 
but  the  delightful  privilege  of  the  Great  Corpora- 
tion to  find  every  American  a  job  that  he  will  like 
better  than  making  or  selling  intoxicating  liquors 
for  a  living,  and  at  the  same  time  take  away  the 
temptation  from  the  drunkard,  who  is  to  be  pitied 
more  than  despised.  If  liquor  is  not  made  it  will 
not  be  drank. 

"But,  Combine,  is  this  not  too  radical  a 
change?  Too  radical  to  be  popular?" 

"Thoughtfully,  I  answer  no,  because  all  hope 
of  relief  from  the  ordinary  restriction  or  reform 
sources  have  ignominiously  failed.  So  to  indus- 
trial combination  and  to  Combine  alone  can  we 
look  for  relief,  and  this  kind  of  relief  is  both  im- 
mediate and  agreeable.  When  it  once  dawns  upon 
Americans  that  I  (Combine)  am  actually  married 
to  Goddess  (the  government)  and  that  we  have 


68  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

the  blessing  of  Him  who  gave  the  law  that  impels 
both  of  us  to  come  to  the  relief  of  all  the  family, 
the  change  will  be  popular  and  as  popular  as  radi- 
cal, aye,  popular  because  it  is  radical. 

"Yes,  I  feel  just  as  kindly  toward  and  as  com- 
petent to  remove  all  the  obstacles  between  the  la- 
borer and  the  capitalists  as  between  the  prohibi- 
tionists and  the  liquor  men.  Competition  is  the 
cause  of  all  this  unrest;  its  removal  becomes  and 
is  an  industrial  business  matter  —  no  sentiment 
about  it.  Men  must  eat,  no  matter  what  they  be- 
lieve, and  it's  purely  a  business  matter  to  provide 
food.  I  stand  bound  to  settle  every  business  mat- 
ter, that  means  absolutely  every  difference  be- 
tween labor  and  capital.  All  Americans  are  en- 
titled to  equal  consideration  and  respect,  as  soon 
as  I  can  induce  them  to  hear  me — to  become  share- 
holders and  thus  put  themselves  in  the  corpora- 
tion, that  is  into  a  business  position  where  they 
can  be  reached,  that  moment  they  will  be  helped. 
Clearly,  one  must  get  into  America  before  he  can 
be  a  citizen.  He  must  get  into  grace  before  he 
can  have  the  benefits  of  grace.  So  any  one  must 
get  into  corporation  before  he  can  have  the  bene- 
fits of  that  corporation. 


COMBINE  SPEAKS  FOR  HIMSELF  69 

"Yes,  Socialists,  after  all,  are  the  only  ones 
who  really  care,  who  really  want  to  actually  settle 
matters,  and  they  are  going  in  exactly  the  wrong 
direction.  It  is  plain  that  a  mixture  of  govern- 
ment and  industry  is  incompatible  and  corrupts 
both,  and  yet  they  want  the  so-called  corrupt  gov- 
ernment to  own  more  and  more;  but,  kindly,  is  it 
not  an  utterly  hopeless  outlook  for  Labor  as  such 
to  ever  hope  to  win  out  when  every  laborer  actu- 
ally does  desert — or  expects  soon  to  desert — the 
ranks  of  Labor  and  join  the  enemy — the  Capital- 
ist^ I  bring  with  me  the  Socialistic  want,  but  it 
is  not  pertinent  for  me  to  discuss  disputed  points 
with  any  political  parties,  associations,  or  indi- 
viduals and  I  have  not  done  so.  It  is  only  for  me 
to  go  steadily  forward  and  offer  every  induce- 
ment, and  with  inducement  succeed. 

"I  am  heartily  glad  of  your  welcome,  both  on 
your  account  and  mine,  and  now  that  you  bid  me 
come  to  your  fireside,  we  will  talk  over  mutual 
interests  surrounded  with  the  family.  Home  is 
the  place  where  all  American  laws,  both  political 
and  industrial,  must  hereafter  be  made." 

********* 

"Wife,  I  have  been  perplexed  as  to  how  the 
labor  question  could  ever  be  settled.  Some  said 


70  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

it  never  would  be  settled.    Combine  can  settle  it." 

"Husband,  it  has  been  a  cause  of  sorrow  to 
think  that  the  liquor  problem  could  never  be 
solved.  Combine  is  the  complete  solution." 

'  'I  have  wondered,  too,  how  the  wicked  sav- 
agery of  competition  could  ever  be  done  away. 
Combine  does  away  with  it." 

"I  have  also  felt  sad  at  the  inconsistency  of 
professed  Christians  because  they  have  had  to 
fight  like  demons  for  a  living.  Making  consist- 
ency impossible.  Combine  enables  them  to  be 
consistent,  to  quit  fighting  and  work  together  in 
peace  as  Christians  want  to  and  should;  devoting 
themselves  more  successfully  to  the  cause  of 
Christ." 

"Yes,  wife,  working  for  a  living  is  enough 
without  fighting  to  get  part  of  what  we  have 
worked  for.  How  are  we  going  to  get  into  the 
combination  is  no  longer  a  question.  I  see  that 
it  is  as  plain  as  the  road  to  mill.  The  'corporation 
act'  lays  down  the  way  the  plan  of  procedure  as 
plainly  as  the  way  for  a  couple  in  love  to  get 
married.  It  is  all  brought  about  in  a  moment.  It 
is  expressed  in  that  one  word,  'wantto,'  that  is  the 
word.  Wife,  we  have  not  lost  a  daughter,  but  we 
have  gained  a  son. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE 

The  etiquette,  the  public  reception,  first  after 
betrothal,  and  the  announcement  is  not  yet  well 
defined.  The  four  hundred  have  a  program,  a 
book  written,  but  with  about  four  hundred  varia- 
tions. For  is  it  not  permissible  for  the  prospective 
bride  to  be  frivolous,  to  giggle  and  laugh,  or  sit 
solemn  as  at  a  funeral,  posing  for  her  picture,  or 
go  off  into  hysterics,  yet  have  her  conduct  pro- 
nounced by  her  set  to  be  "just  lovely."  The 
mother  has  latitude,  an  almost  equally  wide  range 
for  her  eccentricities  and  ladylike  deportment. 
Even  the  eccentricities  of  the  prospective  groom 
are  readily  accounted  for  and  overlooked,  for  it  is 
to  be  expected  that  he  acts,  well,  just  awkward,  to 
say  the  least.  But  the  "old  man"  does  not  seem 
to  have  a  place  where  he  can  fit  in  without  there 
being  at  least  four  hundred  criticisms  rather  than 
one  excuse.  The  sound  of  revelry  by  night,  which 

71 


72  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

he  readily  admits  must  be  all  right,  does  not  har- 
monize exactly  with  what  he  has  thought  out  to 
say  on  this  momentous  occasion,  neither  does  the 
proper  time  arrive  for  him  to  speak  until  after  it 
has  passed.  Thrown  entirely  upon  his  own  re- 
sources, he  finally  drops  onto  a  plan,  though  with- 
out a  precedent,  to  be  sure,  a  plan  number  four 
hundred  and  one.  He  acts  upon  his  impulse  and 
hands  his  written  speech  to  the  reporter  with  a 
request  that  it  be  published  with  the  "write  up" 
in  the  morning  paper.  The  wisdom  of  his  action 
is  and  will  be  apparent  to  all  who  read,  when  each 
are  away  from  frivolities,  and  alone  with  himself 
and  able  to  think  as  he  reads,  to  follow  out  the 
real  significance  of  these  new  relations  that  are 
being  acted  out  on  the  stage  before  him  these  vital 
connections  playfully  welded,  but  welded  just 
the  same,  by  this  marriage  contract,  made  long 
before,  perhaps,  but  just  now  given  to  the  pub- 
lic, in  this  faddish  kind  of  way.  It  comes  to  a 
father  with  a  peculiar  force.  It  seems  to  him  like 
a  retiring  from  office,  a  stepping  down  and  out, 
a  giving  up  of  business,  a  notification  that  he  has 
been  a  failure  in  the  management  of  affairs,  that 
a  younger  man  is  needed — just  as  if  he  were  old, 
yet  he  must  admit  the  inevitable  fact.  There  is 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  73 

a  pathos  in  it  all;  yet  we  see  him  turn  bravely 
away  and  resolutely  choke  down  his  feelings,  and 
speaks  bravely.  We  seem  to  almost  hear  his  cheer- 
ful voice,  clear  and  clarionlike,  as  it  rings  out  in 
the  banquet  hall  (*?)  while  we  thoughtfully  read 
it  all  in  the  columns  of  the  morning  paper.  He 
intuitively  takes  a  higher  seat  in  our  affections. 
Read  what  he  says  and  ponder  over  every  sen- 
tence : 

"Were  it  not  that  cheerfulness  is  obligatory,  I 
would  feel  sad  on  this  occasion.  I  have  lived  for 
my  family.  I  have  practised  free  competition;  it 
has  been  the  ideal  of  my  business  life.  I  have 
preached  it  from  the  pulpit,  advocated  it  on  the 
rostrum,  pleaded  it  at  the  bar  of  justice,  and  in 
assembly  halls  have  I  helped  to  crystallize  it  into 
the  common  law  of  the  land.  I  need  not  tell  you 
tonight  that  I  have  been  sincere,  but  I  am  here 
now  to,  as  cheerfully  as  may  be,  admit  that  I  have 
been  mistaken,  at  the  same  time  admitting  that 
there  is  a  better  way.  It  chokes  a  little  always  to 
acknowledge  that  one  has  been  mistaken,  but  we 
Americans  are  wiser  today  than  we  were  yester- 
day. I  need  not  to  go  back  over  the  defects  of 
competition;  you  and  I  know  its  defects  by  sad 
experience.  Neither  will  I  condemn  these  defects 


74  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

overmuch,  but  rather  pass  by  them  as  honest  ( ?) 
defects,  much  as  we  do  the  shortcomings  of  a  dead 
neighbor.  My  inclinations,  concerning  this  mar- 
riage, if  I  were  left  to  consult  them,  would  be  to 
say,  'Postpone ;  not  ready  yet.'  We  do  not  change 
a  habit  of  life  without  some  regret,  but  there  are 
some  things  we  cannot  postpone:  a  birth,  a  mar- 
riage, a  death.  The  facts  are,  a  time  has  defi- 
nitely come  when  we  must  surrender,  and  we  may 
as  well  do  it  gladly.  Combine  must  inevitably 
take  hold  of,  and  wield  our  destinies.  Competi- 
tion must  go,  whether  we  prefer  to  yield  to  Com- 
bine our  Goddess  or  not.  We  are  entering  fke 
Combine  Age.  I  do  not  appear  upon  this  scene 
of  conviviality  tonight  to  object  to  this  fiat  of 
fate.  Love  for  Combine  has  conquered.  Love  is 
said  to  be  the  greatest  force  in  the  world.  Law  is 
but  an  expression  of  love.  I  am  here  to  deal  in 
facts.  One  of  these  facts  is  'Combine'  (he  will 
not  be  offended  at  what  I  am  about  to  say)  as  a 
significant  word,  means  'love,'  whereas,  compete, 
as  a  significant  word,  means  'hate.'  Can  we  pause 
long  enough  to  take  in  all  the  meaning  of  these 
two  words?-  Love  has  conquered.  Am  I  and  wife 
and  daughter  here  tonight  to  feel  humiliated  and 
sad,  as  though  we  were  subdued?  Conquered? 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  75 

Yet  this  is  the  attitude  many  would  have  us  as- 
sume. 

"There  is  much  more  than  a  mere  mating  of  a 
couple  of  individuals  involved  in  this  marriage, 
but  if  there  were  not,  even  then  an  optimistic  out- 
look is  more  healthy  than  pessimism.  If  Combine 
has  somehow  got  possession  of  our  daughter,  and 
the  daughter  has  possession  of  her  mother,  and 
her  mother  has  possession  of  me,  Combine  is  even 
now  the  ruling  factor  and  has  possession  of  the 
American  family,  and  we  had  just  as  well  make 
the  best  of  it  and  lay  our  plans  accordingly. 

"Seriously  now,  what  significance  is  attached 
to  the  marriage  between  politics  and  industry? 
I  am  expected  to  answer  this  question,  and  I  shall 
be  as  explicit  as  the  time  will  permit.  Combine 
himself  may  be  surprised  to  learn  how  well  an 
old  competitor,  from  habit,  is  acquainted  with  the 
young  athlete.  The  nomination  of  Judge  Parker, 
though  in  itself  thought  by  many  to  be  an  insig- 
nificant affair,  marks  a  point  in  the  history  of 
America,  second  only  to  the  birth  of  America.  St. 
Louis  was  the  place  where  the  final  'yes'  was  said 
that  made  Combine  and  our  Goddess  of  Liberty 
man  and  wife.  This  is  the  fact.  Now  what  will 


76  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

this  marriage  mean  when  it  is  completely  legal- 
ized, solemnized,  consummated? 

"First,  it  is  the  uniting  of  two  old  families, 
which  were  far  enough  apart  to  be  considered  no 
kin,  yet  who  are  related,  and  'blood  is  thicker  than 
water.'  I  remember  when  Combine  was  born  we 
neighbors  were  proud  of  the  baby,  but  he  was  only 
considered  a  'neighbor's  baby,'  that's  all;  good 
only  for  those  who  had  money.  We  called  him 
'The  Corporation  Act,'  but  to  compare  him  with 
our  baby,  the  fair,  popular  'Goddess  of  Liberty,' 
would  then  have  been  an  insult.  It  never  occurred 
to  us  then  that  a  marriage  between  these  babies 
was  at  all  likely,  that  is  that  government  of,  for 
and  by  the  people  would  lead  to  industry  of,  for 
and  by  that  people. 

"From  the  very  beginning  woman  has  ruled, 
and,  in  a  sense,  she  always  will.  If  so,  then  this 
will  become  an  Industrial  Republic.  For  it  goes 
without  saying  that  my  daughter  carries  with  her 
the  inborn,  peculiar  womanly  characteristics  to 
rule  (with  love,  to  be  sure)  and  she  is  educated 
from  her  youth  up  to  believe  in  'of,  for  and  by  all 
the  people,'  she  undoubtedly  will  carry  this  idea 
with  her,  her  feminine  instinct  to  rule  by  love,  of 
course,  but,  remember,  'her  love  is  law'  In  the 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  77 

last  analysis,  the  exactions  of  love  are  not  less 
than  the  exactions  of  law.  No  man  ever  marries 
a  woman  but  intuitively  expects  to  be  ruled  by 
her,  and  he  is  seldom  disappointed.  It  is  an  old 
saying  we  men  have  among  us,  'he  led  her  to  the 
altar/  but,  bless  you,  not  to  sacrifice  her,  but  to 
marry  her,  to  have  the  'awl  pierce  (as  Jews  used 
to  do)  his  own  ear,'  which,  among  other  things, 
means  for  us  as  men  to  take  a  place  by  her  side,  to 
make  her  our  equal;  and  if  she  is  our  equal  she 
will  surely  carry  her  own  ideas  of  equality  with 
her  and  utilize  them  in  the  interest  of  industrial 
equality. 

"Observe  the  'Corporate'  pledge  is  an  equiva- 
lent of  the  marriage  pledge.  Each  and  every  share- 
holder is  really  a  shareholder;  not  a  make-believe, 
but  feels  as  a  shareholder,  has  the  motives  of  a 
shareholder.  He  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
an  industrial  citizen  of  the  Combine ;  and  like  as  a 
citizen  of  the  country,  is  entitled  to  the  protection 
of  Combine,  and  in  return  is  obligated  'to  protect' 
Combine.  So  I  need  not  only  to  admit  that  I  was 
wrong  in  opposing  Combine's  attention  to  my 
daughter,  but  to  ask  his  pardon,  for  he  comes  with 
a  better  business  idea  than  competition  (which  I 
always  foolishly  practiced),  and  he  alone  is  in 


78  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

position  and  now  can  solve  the  labor  problem, 
which  competition  could  never  hope  to  do.  Com- 
petition never  had  a  helpful  idea. 

"In  a  word,  all  shareholders  being  one  and  the 
same  in  financial  business  interests,  as,  after  a 
marriage  there  are  no  longer  two  pocketbooks,  two 
bank  accounts,  two  financial  business  rivals,  but 
allies,  that  is,  the  financial  interest  of  one  becomes 
the  real,  identical,  financial  business  interest  of 
the  other.  And  let  me  say  again  that  this  is  the 
real  signification  of  the  nomination  of  Judge 
Parker.  It  is  government  saying  'yes'  to  Com- 
bine, an  'engagement'  between  industry  and  poli- 
tics. 

"Heretofore,  for  one  to  interfere  or  meddle 
with  intent  to  injure  the  interest  of  the  other  was 
called  -political  corruption'  by  the  one  side,  or 
'government  interference  in  industrial  affairs'  by 
the  other  side,  yet,  strangely  enough,  there  never 
has  been,  since  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  a  time  when  politics  could  have  got 
along  without  industry,  or  industry  without  poli- 
tics. Neither  my  daughter  nor  Combine  could 
have  lived  one  without  the  other,  playmates  from 
their  youth  up.  As  I  look  back  over  the  interven- 
ing years,  I  can  now  see  that  they  have  grown  up 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  79 

for  one  another,  though  maybe,  unwittingly  to 
either  of  them  or  us,  and  marriage  was  inevitable, 
in  due  time.  Some  one  has  said,  'There  is  a  time 
in  the  affairs  of  men,  which,  if  taken  at  its  flood, 
leads  on  to  fortune.'  That  time  was  at  two  o'clock 
the  early  morning  of  the  ninth  day  of  July, 
when  a  Democratic  convention  nominated  a 
Judge  Parker.  When  Hearst  and  Bryan,  repre- 
sentatives of  anti-monopoly,  were  defeated  once 
and  for  all,  they  tacitly  agreed  that  that  was  the 
last  protest  against  Combine,  and  at  that  moment 
this  union  between  industry  and  politics  was 
sealed,  made  with  all  that  a  marriage  and  a  com- 
mon interest  can  be  made  to  mean.  God  said  that 
married  people  were  no  more  'twain,'  but  one 
flesh,  yet  each  individual  still  necessarily  main- 
tained their  distinct  individuality.  I  am  aware 
that  these  facts  sound  like  fiction,  but  let  me  re- 
mind you,  Combine  is  no  fiction,  the  Chicago  and 
St.  Louis  conventions  were  no  fiction.  No  chief- 
tain ever  defended  more  valiantly  than  did  Hearst 
and  Bryan;  even  in  surrender  they  were  gallant. 
"There  can  be  no  such  thing  as  the  tyranny  of 
wealth — the  autocracy  of  the  corporation  wealth 
can  be  neither  tyrannical  or  aristocratic  after  all 
wealth  and  all  Americans  have  merged  by  the 


80  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

marriage  of  my  daughter  with  Combine,  thus 
wealth  is  made  the  heritage  of  all  the  people,  and 
as  certainly  all  as  political  liberty  is  now  for  all. 
If  there  even  were  any  other  way  of  settling  the 
quarrels  between  capital  and  labor,  marriage  is 
certainly  the  best  way.  Thereafter  one  common 
interest  will  install  industrial  monopoly,  a  new 
family  will  spring  up  and  every  appearance  of 
youthful  political  indiscretion  will  be  forgotten. 
With  this  new  family  once  established  a  new  era 
of  prosperity,  one  of  peace  and  good  will,  will  be 
inaugurated.  I  conclude  this  phase  of  my  speech 
by  appealing  to  you  tonight,  that  if  any  of  you 
still  stand  in  a  maze  at  the  audacity  of  this  mar- 
riage contract,  this  St.  Louis  'engagement,'  to  stop 
and  ask  yourself  this  one  simple  question:  'What 
cannot  Combine  now  do  for  us  all,  as  bonande 
shareholders,  now  that  he  has  a  fair  chance — now 
that  he  is  working  for  my  daughter;  that  is,  for 
all  the  people  (with  the  emphasis  on  the  words, 
for  all,  as  for  all  will  naturally  follow  this 
marriage,  which  is  logically  to  include  all  the 
people4?  Marriage  is  better  than  competing, 
fighting,  striking,  locking  out — allowing  you  to 
be  the  judges,  and  after  you  have  thought  it  all 
out  for  yourselves,  you  will  find  it  is  a  love  affair 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  81 

after  all,  so  it  cannot  be  broken  off,  if  you  would. 
To  be  sure,  this  courtship  has  been  a  little  rough. 
Mother  and  I  have  made  it  rough  for  Combine 
and  yes,  daughter,  too,  sometimes,  but  through 
sunshine  and  shadows  each  have  learned  by  it  all 
to  respect  the  character  of  the  other,  and  have 
learned  that  if  it  were  even  possible  to  have  ever 
fought  it  out  at  all  (as  Labor  and  Capital  have 
tried  in  vain  to  do)  that  competition  is  absolutely 
out  of  harmony  with  the  true  character  of  any 
Americanized  American;  that  marriage  is  the 
foreordained  solution  of  this  whole  politic- 
industrial  problem. 

"All  profits  of  all  kinds  will  go  into  the  Com- 
bine till,  but  each  individual  member  or  share- 
holder will  own  in  his  or  her  own  individual  name, 
naturally,  a  home  as  well  as  stock,  this  logically 
is  the  genius  of  the  corporate  act,  each  being  sep- 
arate shareholders  in  one  combine. 

"Civilization  has  indeed  increased  the  variety, 
quality  and  quantity  of  productions,  but  to  what 
purpose?  That  we,  like  certain  brutes,  should  get 
into  the  trough  with  both  feet?  just  as  though  this 
one  little  item  of  production  were  the  very  last? 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  hand  that  produced 
this  one  production  is  competent  to  produce  more? 


82  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

or,  we  like  that  certain  other  brute,  driving  the 
weaker  ones  away?  What  does  'H-u-m-a-n-e' 
spell?  What  does  it  mean?  Combine,  the  'sys- 
tem' which  is  the  very  same  hand  that  manipu- 
lated the  Democratic  and  Republican  conventions, 
that  manages  Standard  Oil  and  kindred  corpora- 
tions in  the  interest  of  its  own  shareholders,  each 
shareholder  waiting  politely  and  genteelly,  as  at 
table,  for  each  their  own  dividends.  Plenty,  yes; 
no  need  to  hurry,  to  act  the  hog,  or  lionlike,  to 
drive  the  little  men,  women  and  children  away 
from  the  table  hungry,  to  live  on  coarser  food  or  to 
depend  on  the  charity  of  that  hog  or  that  lion  for 
the  next  meal.  Aye,  we  are  not  hogs,  we  are  not 
lions;  why  should  we  longer  act  the  brute?  Com- 
bine comes  to  produce  men,  gentle  men.  Combine 
not  only  can  increase  present  property  in  its  pro- 
ductive capacity  tenfold  by  human  co-operation, 
but  offers  the  only  h-u-m-a-n-e  'system'  of  distri- 
bution possible,  fair,  universal,  Christian.  Distri- 
bution is  the  larger  nobler  work  of  humanity;  it 
is  the  one  great  Christian  characteristic  of  Christian 
civilization.  When  we  open  our  eyes  to  see  that 
insurance  is  just  what,  and  nearly  the  only  thing 
that  rich  men  are  wanting — aye,  all  men  want, 
and  that  Combine  guarantees  that  very  insurance 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  83 

to  every  man,  woman  and  child,  then  the  brute, 
now  intent  on  getting  all  and  keeping  all,  van- 
ishes, goes,  once  and  for  all,  and  the  courteous 
dividend  system  of  Combine  take  its  place,  and 
we  pass  out  of  the  domain  of  the  competitive 
brute  into  the  gallant  combine  of  the  human,  and 
the  'system'  that  we  now  fear,  which  is  the  spirit 
of  the  Corporation  Act,  will  be  found  to  be  the 
real  Industrial  Republic,  the  foreordained  mate 
for  my  daughter,  the  'Goddess  of  Liberty/ 

"Once  in  the  Combine  Age,  we  will  look  back 
with  wonder  and  amazement  on  the  misdirected 
distribution  of  industry  of  the  past  competitive 
age.  It  is  to  the  'system/  to  the  Combine  alone 
that  we  are  to  look  for  this  equitable  distribution 
and  humane  conciliation. 

"Being  a  physician,  you  may  inquire  what 
effect  will  this  reconciliation  have  upon  physical 
health4?  It  will  bring  health,  and  also  add  years 
to  life.  My  daughter  will  naturally  have  a  home 
for  herself,  and  what  wife  or  mother  that  would 
not  give  every  one  of  her  children  a  home  if  she 
could;  and  what  husband  is  there  that  works  for 
aught  else,  than  to  provide  a  home  for  wife  and 
every  child  that  may  seek  shelter  under  his  roof? 
Yet,  fathers  have  not  been  able  under  competition 


84  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

to  do  so;  but  who  doubts  for  a  moment  the  ability 
of  Combine,  the  physical  athlete  there,  to  give  a 
home  and  cottage  and  grounds  to  every  mother 
under  that  flag,  and  a  sure  and  never- failing  job 
to  every  man  in  the  continued  support  of  that 
mother's  home*?  This  is  the  true  signification  of 
the  marital  union  between  the  'Goddess  of  Lib- 
erty' and  Combine.  What  need  of  sorrow;  aye, 
what  is  there  to  hinder  rejoicing  and  sincere  heart- 
felt thankfulness  instead? 

"With  this  home  for  every  man,  woman  and 
child  in  America,  goes  the  idea  of  pure  air  for 
all,  sunshine  for  all,  security  for  all,  contentment 
for  all;  each  guarantees  of  good  health,  better 
health,  finally  the  very  best  health.  Life  will 
mean  then,  more  than  length  of  days ;  it  will  mean 
ideal  happiness.  With  my  daughter,  'Liberty/ 
as  the  new  mother  of  this  new  family,  will  we  not 
then  have  in  industrial  liberty  all  that  our  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  always  inferred,  prom- 
ised, but  never  until  now  actually  gives — life,  in- 
dustrial liberty  as  our  own  mother,  and  the  pur- 
suit of  happiness  as  the  heritage  of  every  indi- 
vidual4? Cheer  up,  then,  for  all  this  is  wrapped 
up  in  the  Combine  Idea,  the  marriage  vow.  I 
would  not  now  prevent  this  marriage  if  I  could. 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  85 

We  understand  each  other  better,  now  that  the 
'mists  have  cleared  away.' 

"Clearly  it  has  not  been  much  of  a  compliment 
to  our  civilization  or  to  competitive  management, 
or  rather  want  of  management,  in  the  past,  when 
after  we  have  become  such  skillful  producers,  that 
we  are  still  such  blunderers  or  ignominious  frauds, 
consummate  failures  when  it  comes  to  distribution. 
The  facts  are  that  in  the  very  midst  of  our  pro- 
digious productions,  abundant,  if  properly  distri- 
buted, for  everybody,  that  there  should  be  mil- 
lions of  men,  women  and  children  who  are  practi- 
cally in  a  state  bordering  on  starvation.  There 
has  been  something  radically  wrong  and  which 
Combine  only  is  able  to  clear  away. 

"This  is  a  night  designedly  given  up  to  revelry. 
Well  be  it  so.  There  are  few  things  that  lend  to 
revelry  so  much  as  freedom  from  condemnation. 
The  self-respect  found  in  a  clear  conscience, 
coupled  with  an  assurance  of  a  home  to  keep,  a 
living  assured,  is  enough  to  make  gladness  glad, 
but  there  is  more  than  gladness  to  this  celebration. 

"It  is  asked,  What  effect  will  a  home  and  a  liv- 
ing guaranteed  to  all,  have  upon  the  education,  the 
morality,  the  intelligence  of  the  people?  the  re- 
ligion of  the  future?'  Let  me  answer  this:  Under 


86  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

competition,  parents  have  not  known  what  spec- 
ialty to  select  for  their  boy  or  girl,  because  there 
is  no  telling  whether  the  child  can  follow  in  that 
chosen  line  after  he  has  grown  up.  He  then  will 
have  to  work  at  what  he  can  catch,  for  there  has 
been  no  supervising,  helping  hand  held  out  to  him. 
Nobody  cares  what  loving  thought  the  parents 
have  frequently  bestowed  for  naught,  or  what  la- 
borious effort  the  child  has  taken  to  make  him  or 
herself  proficient  in  this  or  that  line,  never  to  fol- 
low it  at  all.  Such  are  the  demands  of  nature, 
that  we  must  all  eat.  In  the  face  of  this  fact, 
choice  of  occupation  is  frequently  impossible,  and 
from  year  to  year  he  or  she  drops  down  and  down, 
and  in  their  desperation  they  must  take  what  is 
left — educated  for  it  or  not.  Such  has  been  edu- 
cation under  competition,  where  nobody  knows  or 
can  know,  or  nobody  cares  or  can  care.  Not  so 
where  the  guarding  hand  of  Combine  begins  with 
the  child  in  the  cradle,  and  as  gently  guards  it 
with  the  hand  of  expert  industrial  management. 
All  along  through  a  long,  long  life,  ah,  we  are 
emphatically  'our  brother's  keeper.'  This  care  is 
but  another  definition  of  the  word  'combine.' 

"Again,  the  battle  for  bread  under  competition 
has  been  so  intense,  so  fierce,  so  vicious,  that  little 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  87 

time  is  left  in  which  to  give  attention  to  religion 
or  a  future  life,  tfhis  life  monopolizes  both,  all 
the  time  and  all  the  attention.  It  is  truly  said  the 
best  way  to  gain  a  friend  is  to  be  one.  A  little 
definite  planning,  with  a  motive  to  'help  and  not 
to  hinder,'  and  skillful  management  by  the  most 
competent  experts  will  parcel  out  industrial  duties 
so  evenly  and  reliably  that  we  each  having  a  liv- 
ing assured  to  each,  and  as  a  return  for  duty  done, 
that  the  necessary  labor  to  make  a  living  will  be 
considered  a  privilege,  leaving  time  to  take  a 
look  at  nature  and  its  beauties,  and  through  na- 
ture, up  to  nature's  God,  and  even  investigate 
revelation,  and  from  the  contentments  of  a  real 
home  below,  contemplate  and  properly  prepare 
for  a  home  in  Heaven. 

"The  guarantee  that  Combine  alone  and  only 
can  give  to  every  young  couple  a  home  at  mar- 
riageable age  will  give  virtue  the  very  best  oppor- 
tunity. There  will  be  no  excuse  for  resorting  to 
deeds  that  are  dark  or  impure.  Trusted,  we  can 
trust;  being  trustworthy  is  to  be  trusted,  morally 
as  well  as  financially.  To  do  industrially  as  one 
would  be  done  by  gets  for  itself  a  glad  moral  re- 
sponse. Virtue  will  not  be  sold  for  money,  but 
will  be  really  virtuous  on  its  own  account,  and 


88  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

for  the  love  of  virtue,  and  moral  restraint,  will  be 
adhered  to  as  a  privilege  as  well  as  a  duty. 

"Human  progress  has  been  hindered  by  indus- 
trial competition.  I  acknowledge  that  it  has  been 
climbing  up  by  pulling  another  down,  rather  than 
by  lifting  all  up.  A  getting  out  of  barbarism,  a 
getting  up  in  any  way  may  be  better  than  remain- 
ing down,  but  is  not  trampling  on  the  bodies  of 
less  fortunate  competitors  still  barbarism?  We 
all  have  known  that  competition  at  best  is  but  a 
modified  form  of  barbarism,  but  by  this  marriage, 
the  combine  age  is  definitely  inaugurated,  which 
means  the  laborer  and  his  very  own  capital  under 
one  and  the  same  management,  namely,  that  of 
the  most  competent  to  manage,  all  the  people 
themselves  to  do  the  selecting,  as  all  the  people 
are  shareholders  in  a  combine  of,  for  and  by  all 
the  people.  Now,  if  all  these  shareholders  them- 
selves be  judges,  what  need  we  care  if  it  be  a 
Rockefeller,  Lazarus,  a  Mitchell,  a  Parker,  a 
Roosevelt,  a  Jones  or  a  Brown?  Whoever  he  is, 
he,  too,  will  be  in  the  Combine,  one  of  and  with 
us,  will  he  not?  And  get  his  own  greatest  profits 
by  increasing  the  profits  of  every  other  share- 
holder in  the  regular  combine  way,  will  he  not? 


THE  PEOPLE  DEFEND  COMBINE  89 

"It  will  be  just  as  necessary  for  every  one  to 
be  in  the  Combine  as  it  is  for  every  one  in  America 
to  be  a  citizen  in  order  to  be  entitled  to  protection. 
If  one  were  left  out  without  protection,  it  might 
be  you  or  it  might  be  me.  So  Combine  is  the  only 
insurance  rich  men  can  have  against  poverty, 
either  for  themselves  or  their  families.  No  man 
can  be  rich  enough  under  competition  to  be  im- 
mune from  poverty.  Listen,  no  man  can  ever 
be  poor  in  the  Combine  Age.  A  master-finan- 
cier has  said,  'Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  to 
them,  for  it  is  the  law'  and  the  prophets,  the  lite- 
ral fulfillment  of  which  is  found  in  the  genius  of 
the  Corporation  Act,  very  properly  called  'Com- 
bine.' He,  the  very  same,  who  has  sought  for  and 
obtained  the  heart,  and  awaits  but  a  brief  time  to 
obtain  the  hand  of  the  Goddess  of  Liberty,  to 
take  care  of  her,  to  perpetuate  her  and  all  her 
interests." 


CHAPTER  VI 

COMBINE  WINS  OUT 

"I  wish  to  have  a  heart-to-heart  talk  with  my 
grown-up  boys.  I  may  take  the  liberty  to  repeat, 
as  any  mother  may,  but  I  only  try  to  remind  you 
now.  The  time  was  when  it  was  part  of  my 
privilege  to  teach  you ;  at  a  later  period  we  learned 
together;  but  now  I  come  to  you  with  a  reminder 
only.  My  function  as  a  woman  is  to  govern,  by 
love,  to  be  sure,  but  in  the  last  analysis  the  exac- 
tions of  love  are  not  less  than  the  exactions  of  law. 
We  each  know  that  the  subject  of  conversation  is 
the  attention  that  Combine  is  giving  to  your  sister. 
I  am  not  here  to  defend  Goddess,  but  to  remind 
you  that  she  is  now  a  grown-up  woman,  and,  like 
women,  possesses  the  one  distinctive  function  of 
government.  This  function  is  hers  by  an  eternal 
fitness  of  things,  which  you  will  admit  as  men  and 
without  argument.  So  you  need  not  fear  for  her 
safety,  though  she  marries  Combine.  She  will 


90 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  91 

rule  him,  never  fear;  by  love,  to  be  sure,  but  love 
is,  as  I  continue  to  remind  you,  as  exacting  as  law. 
But  does  she  love  him,  does  he  love  her?  I  think 
you  believe  as  I  do,  that  the  infatuation  is  mutual ; 
and  mutual  love  between  the  sexes  will  always 
find  a  way.  So  I  remind  you  that  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  feature,  but  one  of  fact,  and  so  it  is  not  a 
bit  of  use  to  object.  What  are  you  and  I  going  to 
do  about  it?  Let  us  as  dispassionately  as  possible 
go  over  the  ground  together.  We  are  reminded, 
first,  that  it  is  woman's  function  to  govern;  sec- 
ond, that  it  is  not  her  function  to  manage  prop- 
erty. This  is  no  hardship  to  her ;  she  does  not  care 
to  own  any  more  than  she  does  to  vote  at  an  elec- 
tion. In  a  word,  she  prefers  to  manage  the  man- 
ager. The  fact  that  she  is  man's  equal  does  not 
carry  with  it  that  she  is  also  a  financier,  or  built 
physically  to  make  the  living  by  manual  labor,  in 
field  or  factory,  or  to  own  the  implements  of  la- 
bor, namely,  the  'Capita?  employed  by  men  as 
tools  of  manual  labor,  used  by  them  in  making 
that  living.  To  be  sure,  she  loves  to  own  her 
home,  its  furnishing  and  environments,  but  in  the 
sense  that  a  bird  owns  her  nest,  and  masculine 
gallantry  will  not  interfere  if  a  woman  here  and 
there  insists  on  owning  productive  property;  it 


92  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

does  him  no  harm;  but,  broadly,  it  is  not  her  in- 
clination or  function  to  own  productive  property. 
What  she  esteems  to  be  a  higher  function  is  to 
matronly  preside,  to  govern.  She  knows  it  intu- 
itively. Men  know  it,  and  neither  he  nor  she  ob- 
ject to  it.  This  is  all  true  by  a  well-defined  fit- 
ness of  things.  Government,  then,  is  feminine  in 
its  character.  We  call  it  'She'  instinctively.  The 
words  'freedom'  and  liberty'  are  feminine  in  their 
signification.  A  political  government  is  a  personi- 
fied woman.  We  call  her  'Goddess,'  and  you,  my 
sons,  would  fight  for  her  as  you  would  for  a 
mother,  a  sister,  or  a  wife.  It  is  intuitively  in  you 
to  do  it.  She  rules  as  a  mother  or  sister  or  wife 
rules,  and  you  as  gladly  submit,  because  it  is  her 
feminine  expression  of  kindness,  more,  of  love,  of 
genuine  love  for  you.  She  makes  no  pretentions 
to  own  the  implements  of  industry;  implements 
with  which  men  make  for  her  and  themselves  a 
living.  Hence  government  ownership  is  undesir- 
able even  to  her,  to  the  government  which  is  dis- 
tinctively a  feminine  attribute;  and  now,  if  it  is 
woman's  function  to  govern,  and,  second,  if  it  is 
not  her  function  to  own,  we  may  deduce  from 
these  two  facts  that  Goddess,  after  her  marriage 
to  Combine,  will  govern,  and  Combine  will  own, 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  93 

'make  the  living,'  naturally,  logically,  and  as  a 
matter  of  course,  thus  uniting  politics  and  indus- 
try by  marriage.  This  marriage  carries  with  it 
industry  of,  for  and  by  the  people,  does  it  not*? 
and  politics  is  invariably  supported  by  industry, 
is  it  not  ^  So  that  it  becomes  and  is,  all  in  the 
'family,'  where  both  are  naturally  obligated  to 
help,  and  in  no  wise  to  hinder  each  other.  Com- 
bine and  Goddess  have  different  natures,  different 
bodies,  but  they  become  one  in  financial  interest, 
in  family  concerns. 

"Now,  my  sons,  if  we  go  back  to  the  concep- 
tions of  both  Goddess  and  Combine,  we  find  they 
both  were  conceived  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  loving 
desire  to  help,  and  I  need  but  remind  you  of  the 
times  of  the  birth  of  each.  If  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  born  in  the  spirit  of  helpful- 
ness, so  was  the  birth  of  Combine.  The  Corpora- 
tion Act  is  distintively  industrial  helpfulness. 
There  is  very  much  in  being  well  born,  and  we 
conclude  that  both  Goddess  and  Combine,  the 
parties  to  this  marriage  contract,  were  well  born. 
I  remind  you  also  that  the  corporation  idea  carries 
with  it  the  idea  of  a  continued  individual  owner- 
ship, no  man  loses  his  property  when  he  enters  a 
corporation.  It  uniquely  preserves  each  share- 


94  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

holder  as  a  separate,  distinct  individual  owner  of 
property.  Ownership  is  an  idea  so  dear  to  Ameri- 
cans that  they  cling  to  it  and  give  it  up  only  with 
their  physical  lives.  So  Combine  means  develop- 
ment of  our  individuality;  and  you  know  we  are 
individual  or  nothing.  Government  ownership 
practically  means  another  to  own,  i.  £.,  govern- 
ment to  become  our  guardians,  we,  imbecile,  in- 
competent or  minor  children,  and  is  a  practical 
forfeiture  of  our  individuality,  and  consequently 
is  repulsive  to  American  manhood.  True,  many 
of  my  sons  have  become  Socialists  because  they 
are  and  have  been  really  imposed  upon  by  their 
thoughtless,  awkward,  or  bigoted  brothers,  who  as 
yet.  do  not  know  distinctly  how  best  to  use  their 
strength.  These,  my  Socialistic  sons,  have  un- 
wittingly appealed  to  government,  and  in  doing  so 
tacitly  say,  'Mother,  I  would  rather  you  would 
own  everything  I  need,  as  you  did  when  I  was 
a  boy,  than  to  have  big  brother  get  everything;  so 
I  positively  yield  up  to  you;  now  make  him  give 
up  his  individual  rights  to  own  in  order  that  I  get 
even  with  him. 

"True,  sons,  you  could  and  did  trust  your 
mother,  as  children,  but  brother  is  of  age  now  and 
I  cannot  make  him  yield  up,  and  it  is  not  the  right 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  95 

way,  if  I  could.  But  a  Corporation  Act  has  been 
thought  out,  or  revealed,  as  a  right  way  of  mu- 
tually helping  each  the  other,  and  I  have  given 
that  law  my  blessing  because  'help  and  not  hin- 
der' is  its  motto.  I  do  not  wish  to  take  over  again 
and  own  your  implements  of  industry,  my  sons, 
and  it  would  be  humiliating  to  you,  as  well  as  to 
me,  for  me  to  do  so.  You  are  all  my  sons;  I  am 
proud  of  you.  You  are  financiers.  I  trust  you; 
you  are  older  and  wiser  today  than  you  were  yes- 
terday. If  you  did  not  understand  the  industrial 
meaning  of  'of,  for  and  by  all  the  people'  fully 
yesterday,  try  again  today.  I  want  my  boys  to 
live  peaceably  among  each  other,  to  help  each 
other.  So  I  cannot  show  any  partiality  between 
them,  as  government  ownership  would  naturally 
do;  I  love  you  all.  I  am  even  now  managing  the 
Post  Office  Department  under  protest,  hoping  to 
give  you  all  by  it  rather  an  example  of  how  much 
better  and  cheaper  it  would  be  for  you  all  to  help 
each  other,  to  work  in  harmony  with  each  other. 
I  am  now  proving  a  hardship  to  those  of  my  sons 
in  the  Express  business.  I  know  I  am,  and  am 
anxious  for  all  my  sons  to  get  into  the  Combine 
and  then  they  will  naturally  relieve  me  from 
carrying  the  mail  or  owning  any  of  the  imple- 


96  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

ments  of  productive  industry,  with  which  my  de- 
voted sons  make  our  living,  and  that,  too,  with- 
out taking  any  implements  away  from  them.  I 
have  found  your  brothers  to  be  all  much  alike,  and 
so,  to  be  more  explicit,  if  it  is  somehow  expected 
that  my  boys  make  the  living  for  the  family,  it 
would  be  manifestly  unjust  for  me,  whose  mission 
it  is  to  govern  them  by  love,  to  now  spitefully  take 
and  keep  under  lock  and  key  the  railroads,  the 
telegraph,  etc.,  implements  with  which  they  make 
the  living.  To  be  sure,  I  know  it  has  been,  under 
competition,  sometimes  absolutely  necessary  that 
I  should  simply  receive  and  hold  the  implement, 
whatever  it  might  be,  until  a  quarrel  was  settled 
between  you,  but  I  immediately  did  as  was  ex- 
pected of  a  receiver,  having  only  a  time  limit  pos- 
session, returned  the  implement  to  the  rightful 
owner;  and  that  as  soon  as  he  was  found  to  be 
the  rightful  owner,  I  had  no  right  to  keep  them 
permanently,  had  I*?  I  take  a  long  time  to  kindly 
talk  this  government  ownership  question  over  to 
show  you  a  better  way — the  way  of  combine  of, 
for  and  by  all  Americans. 

"All  capital  is  the  product  of  labor,  and  as  I, 
the  government,  did  not  labor  to  produce  it,  I 
clearly  have  no  right  to  keep  it  permanently,  have 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  97 

I?  I  think  you  can  see,  my  sons,  if  I  should  un- 
dertake to  keep  it  that  even  each  of  you,  as  well 
as  all  your  brothers,  v/ould  soon  see  and  say  that 
I  had  no  legal  right  to  keep  what  I  did  not  pro- 
duce, or  what  did  not  belong  to  me,  and  I  would 
not  be  looked  upon  kindly,  as  your  mother  always 
should  be,  and  so  would  lose  my  governing  power 
—your  love.  For  you  must  know  that  I  exist  by 
the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  so  ownership,  in- 
stead of  helping  any  of  you,  would  logically  de- 
stroy me,  would  it  not?  The  secret  of  my  govern- 
ing power  is  in  my  love.  A  government  that  is 
not  ruled  by  love  is  practically  under  martial  law, 
so  I  do  not  care  to  own  anything  but  my  necessary 
wardrobe;  then,  I  will  not  have  one  son  who  will 
not  work  to  feed  and  clothe  me  as  readily  as  he 
has  done,  and  will  ever  fight  for  me,  if  need  be. 

"Now,  when  you  understand  Combine  and 
Goddess  better  you  will  find  they  each  love  me, 
and  so  they  do  you,  and  they  will  work  as  heartily 
for  you  when  you  are  one  with  them  in  the  Com- 
bine as  they  now  work  for  themselves  and  me,  for 
you  and  I  will  be  a  living  part  and  parcel  of  'them- 
selves,' will  we  not?  Another  matter  that  this 
marriage  will  settle,  listen:  I  am  aware  that 
some  of  you  have  been  voting  and  expecting  that 


98  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

a  political  ballot  could  control  an  industrial  mat- 
ter, and  because  it  has  not,  the  tendency  is  to  lose 
faith  in  the  power  of  the  ballot;  whereas,  the  mis- 
take is  not  in  the  ballot  at  all,  but  is  in  supposing 
that  (in  time  of  peace)  I,  the  government,  can 
manage  an  industrial  matter.  I  repeat  again  to 
say  that  my  proper  function,  which  I  try  to  mod- 
estly accept,  'is  to  govern.'  I  appreciate  the  fact 
that  this  is  in  harmony  with  my  feminine  char- 
acter. This  function  is  naturally  limited  to  keep- 
ing the  peace  among  my  children,  and  defending 
them  against  a  public  enemy,  or  rather,  giving 
them  efficiency  in  defending  themselves.  My  boys 
are  my  military  and  police  power.  By  loving  my 
sons  I  practically  own  them  and  all  that  they 
own,  do  you  see"? 

"I  have  purposely  repeated  many  things  and  as 
dispassionately  and  kindly  as  I  know  how  in  this 
informal  family  talk  to  you,  my  sons,  so  that 
you  will  not  be  offended,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
be  willingly  set  aright  as  to  my  unique  position. 
An  injustice  to  one  is  the  concern  of  all,  is  it  not? 
All  this  is  a  matter  of  the  Combine,  and  which 
extends  only  and  logically  to  all  who  are  in  the 
Combine,  and  I  would  that  you  plan  to  get  in  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment.  Join  your  progres- 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  99 

sive  fellows  and  thus  with  one  common  interest 
as  a  man  and  wife,  put  an  end  to  industrial  con- 
flict. The  labor  question  will  thus  fade  out  of  ex- 
istence, so,  instead  of  solving  this,  what  so  many 
claim  to  be  a  riddle,  it  solves  itself,  does  it  not1? 
"I  remind  you  of  these  fundamental  facts,  im- 
planted in  our  very  natures,  not  to  boast,  or  to 
have  one  sex  gloat  over  the  other,  but  to  impress 
upon  you  that  it  is  not  worth  while  for  us  to 
run  against  or  oppose  an  eternal  fiat,  or  fitness  of 
things.  For  we  are  not  in  the  world  to  make,  or 
to  create,  but  to  propagate;  not  to  make  Divine 
law,  but  to  obey  it;  to  succeed  by  acting  in  har- 
mony with  nature,  and  as  surely  we  fail  by  oppos- 
ing nature.  Thus  I  remind  you  kindly  that  'gov- 
ernment ownership'  is  not  in  accordance  with  our 
natures,  and  is  quite  as  repulsive  to  us  women  to 
own  as  it  would  be  to  you  men  not  to  own  to 
Goddess,  who  so  perfectly  represents  government, 
as  it  is  to  Combine,  who  so  perfectly  represents  in- 
dustry; so  that  it  is  meet  and  proper  in  this  rea- 
sonable view  of  the  matter,  for  Goddess  to  marry 
Combine,  for  marriage  is  not  a  mere  partnership, 
but  is  'absolute  union.'  It  removes  financial  and 
business  difference,  makes  us  one  in  every  indus- 
trial interest,  puts  us  in  harmony  with  the  God 


100  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

of  nature,  sets  us  above  and  beyond  every  'cross 
purpose,'  and  yet  not  only  preserves  our  individu- 
ality, but  brings  'it  up'  and  out  and  displays  it, 
and  each  of  us  can  see  the  work  'for  which  we  were 
made,'  and  as  distinctly  as  a  woman  undertakes 
household  affairs  and  the  care  of  children,  or  as 
men  turn  to  the  field  and  factory.  The  set  of  the 
current  is  perfectly  susceptible,  and  entirely  away 
from  government  ownership. 

"If  we  stop  to  think  about  it,  all  can  see,  Com- 
bine is  succeeding,  while  competition  is  failing. 
I  ask,  can  industrial  differences,  my  sons,  ever  be 
settled  by  more  and  greater  differences'?  by  widen- 
ing the  gap?  by  more  competition?  by  more  fight- 
ing? You  can  best  get  together  by  burying  the 
hatchet,  the  scalping  knife.  Enemies,  rivals  in 
business  can  become  and  are  actually  becoming 
the  strongest  allies,  the  firmest  helpers  and  they 
make  it  pay.  Take  a  lesson  from  this  fact.  Look 
at  the  hatred  that  continued  to  exist  between  the 
north  and  south  as  long  as  the  bloody  shirt  was 
waived,  but  how  soon  hatred  merged  into  esteem 
when  the  Spanish  War  made  interests  one  and  the 
same.  Blood  was  thicker  than  water,  after  all. 
So  now,  I  reveal  to  you  a  mother's  secret;  the 
antipathy  between  laborers  and  capitalists  will 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  101 

cease  the  moment  both  see  the  fact  that  their  in- 
terests are  one  and  the  same,  and  act  upon  it. 
Combine  is  right,  say  what  we  will.  I  would  be 
greatly  troubled  for  my  children  if  I  did  not  see 
in  the  immediate  future  a  complete  reconciliation 
with  him.  :,,,.,,  , 

"The  misery  of  the  poor  is  about  egteifletf  fty 
the  restlessness,  the  uneasiness,  the  uncertainty -!o¥ ' 
the  rich.  Both  alike  are  to  be  pitied,  but  both  are 
beginning  to  respect  the  powers  of  the  other,  as 
the  northern  soldier  did  and  does  the  southern 
soldier,  and  will,  I  hope,  be  quick  to  affiliate  in 
the  common  cause,  which  is  'making  a  living'  by 
'help  and  not  hinder  J  which  is  the  standing  motto 
of  Combine.  The  corporation  idea  is  'kin'  of  gov- 
ernment, and  does  not  belong  to  the  capitalist  any 
more  than  to  the  laborer,  does  it?  We  are  all 
citizens,  and  equally  so.  It  is  the  heritage  I  be- 
queathed to  all  my  sons  and  daughters. 

"The  Corporation  Act  is  the  medium  by  which 
and  through  which  every  man  in  the  corporation 
becomes  his  own  employer.  This  is  just  what  we 
all  want  to  be,  is  it  not?  I  remind  you  that  the 
words  'free  and  equal'  in  my  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence were  like  sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling 
cymbal,  and  could  never  be  realized  or  fulfilled 


102  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

as  long  as  any  one  of  my  sons  hired  another  or 
one  took  a  menial  part  for  wages,  could  it? 
Therefore  dividends  must  take  the  place  of  wages, 
must  they  not?  And  Combine  means  dividends, 
and  that  by  intention,  and  dividends  means  divi- 
dends ,  fo :  shareholders  in  the  corporation  only. 
That  this  will  prove  a  real  hardship  to  those  of  my 
.sons  no'  ir\  the  corporation,  and  will  continue  to 
be  a  hardship  to  all  such  until  they  all  are  safely 
included  is  a  fact  I  cannot  prevent,  and  I  can  only 
bid  you  Godspeed  to  get  in,  for  there  is  no  safety 
on  the  outside.  To  longer  refuse  is  like  refusing 
cash.  I  repeat,  the  corporation  is  for  all ;  it  could 
not  be  American  */  it  were  not  for  all,  could  it? 
I  remind  you  that  everything  American  is  'of,  for 
and  by  all  the  people.'  Can  anyone  have  special 
privileges,  political  or  industrial,  under  our  flag? 
No — it  is  the  emblem  of  equality. 

"Again,  does  not  the  successes  of  Combine 
against  all  opposition  prove,  if  proof  be  necessary, 
that  there  must  be  a  strong  economic  reason  for 
the  'Corporation  Act?'  It  has  caused  prodigious 
increase  of  the  wealth  of  America.  Combines 
who  are  already  helping  each  other  is  the  cause 
of  this  increase  of  wealth.  The  secret  of  wealth 
is  with  those  that  help  each  other.  We  need  no 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  103 

longer  to  try  to  arrest  this  material  progress;  if 
anti-monopoly,  that  some  of  you  advocate,  were 
possible,  it  would  be  but  to  restore  general  pov- 
erty',  a  going  back  toward  barbarism. 

"The  evolution  of  the  true  industrial  system 
has  been  so  slow  in  its  progress,  and  my  children 
are  such  dull  scholars,  that  even  after  the  Corpo- 
ration Act  has  opened  its  golden  gates,  they  can- 
not see  that  the  Corporation  Act  can  possibly  have 
anything  good  for  them,  unless  they  have  money, 
and  that  in  very  great  abundance;  forgetting  that 
moneyless  men  are  Americans,  'just  the  same/  as 
moneyed  men,  and  that  every  American  belongs 
on  the  inside  of  any  and  everything  American, 
which  means  the  inside  of  the  American  corpora- 
tion, and  entitled  to  all  its  benefits,  emoluments 
and  dividends.  Every  argument,  my  sons,  against 
this  position  answers  itself  in  the  affirmative; 
every  force  opposed  to  the  immediate  formation 
of  a  great  corporation  and  each  of  you,  rich  or 
poor,  entering  into  that  corporation  reacts  upon 
itself.  Aye,  if  you  will  hear  me,  it  is  the  fulfill- 
ment of  the  industrial  law,  'Whatsoever  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them.' 
Now,  my  sons,  if  this  law  should  change  the 
methods  of  industry  from  the  long  continued 


104  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

habit  of  competition,  that  is,  men  habitually 
fighting,  working  against  other  men,  changed  to 
the  Christian  method  of  the  Combine,  which  is 
men  peaceably  working  for,  that  is,  in  the  in- 
terest of  each  other,  would  it  not  be  better  for  all 
of  you,  my  sons?  Your  jealousy  has  been  un- 
wise; Combine  is  a  mutual  friend  of  our  family 
and  a  friend  of  excellent  parts,  too,  for  in  the 
Combine  Age,  which  is  just  at  hand,  my  political 
officials  will  have  no  temptation  to  misuse  their 
powers  as  they  then  will  need  no  private  financial 
profit;  besides,  it  would  then  be  suicide  to  graft. 
Combine  provides  for  necessary  officials.  Their 
living  and  that  of  their  families  is  assured  and 
graft  is  unnecessary,  so  they  as  members  of  that 
Combine  are  intent  only  in  doing  their  duty  as 
statesmen,  such  office  is  the  niche  in  society  that 
they  are  best  adapted  to  fill,  supported  by  Com- 
bine. Hence,  they  can  need  no  private  profit,  and 
can  have  no  financial  motive  to  be  corrupt.  Con- 
sequently society  will  no  longer  offer  a  high  pre- 
mium on  official  dishonesty. 
********* 

"Observe  that  the  better  the  government  the 
less  it  is  felt.  'The  least  governed  is  the  best 
governed,'  is  a  truism,  a  mother's  way.  So  now, 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  105 

my  sons,  just  let  me  attend  to  the  government 
alone,  and  then  very  little  of  it  will  be  required. 
It  is  quite  enough  for  you,  my  sons,  to  'make  the 
living,'  and  when  you  make  it,  you  are  each  to 
be  rewarded  by  dividends,  that  is,  to  all  you  make, 
and  when  you  thus  relieve  me  of  all  semblance  of 
industrial  responsibility,  and  take  that  entire  re- 
sponsibility upon  yourselves,  you  will  find  that 
Combine's  way  is  not  only  the  best  way,  but  the 
only  wray.  It  is  not  only  a  change  of  motive  from 
Competition  to  Combination,  from  hindering  to 
helping  each  other,  changing  from  enemies  to 
allies,  from  industrial  war  to  industrial  peace,  but 
it  is  morally  right,  and  legally  in  harmony  with 
all  statute  law,  and  clearly  v/as  the  ultimate  in- 
tention and  full  design  of  the  Corporation  Act 
enacted  by  your  sincere  fathers.  So,  my  sons,  you 
see  it  is  easy,  and  follows  as  a  kind  of  matter  of 
course  the  moment  you  change  your  motive  from 
Competition  to  Combination.  When  all  are  in 
the  Combine,  a  constituent  part  of  it,  then  the 
Combine  will  naturally  be  'of,  for  and  by'  you 
all,  all  the  people,  just  the  same  as  I,  your  mother, 
am  'by,  of  and  for'  all  my  family.  I  would  not 
have  one  of  my  children  left  out.  The  one  that 
needs  my  help  the  most  I  must  help  the  most — it 


106  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

is  a  mother's  way.  The  meaning  of  Combine  is 
inclusion^  competition  means  exclusion.  Just  why 
my  sons  have  loved  and  practised  inclusion  in  gov- 
ernment, and  exclusion  in  industry,  I  cannot  tell, 
and  I  have  never  heard  one  of  them  give  any  rea- 
son for  it.  I  am  heartily  glad  the  time  has  come 
for  them  to  unite  in  industrial  matters  as  they 
have  in  matters  of  government.  After  you  get 
together  and  have  acquired  actual  ownership  of 
every  item  of  productive  property  in  America, 
which  the  Corporation  Act  enable  you  to  do,  and 
that  in  the  interest  of  all  of  you,  then  there  can  be 
no  labor  question,  no  strike,  no  lockout;  for  no 
sane  man  will  strike  himself,  or  lock  himself  out 
of  a  job. 

"Now,  I  want  to  talk  to  you  as  a  mother  about 
the  Liquor  question.  The  health  of  each  will  be- 
come and  remain  the  financial  concern  of  all,  in 
the  Combine  Age,  and  if  whiskey  or  impure  food 
or  drink  of  any  kind  is  found  to  be  unhealthy,  all 
my  children,  with  one  accord  will  naturally  sub- 
stitute healthy  food  and  drink  in  the  stead  of  the 
unhealthy — do  it  as  a  paying  business  measure 
and  be  in  a  position  to  do  it,  will  they  not?  And 
thus  the  Liquor  Question  will  be  solved  by  the 


COMBINE  WINS  OUT  107 

consent  as  well  as  the  concern  of  all.  Good  health, 
remember,  has  a  money  value. 

"Women  love  Combine  because  he  can  give 
them  a  home.  The  moment  my  sons  change  their 
motive  from  Competition  to  Combination,  every 
mother  will  have  a  home,  as  surely  as  every  bird 
her  nest.  My  sons  are  all  alike  good,  and  will 
then  be  compelled  by  self-interest  to  work  together 
for  the  common  interest,  as  shareholders  have  and 
are  doing.  Then  they  will  see  that  this  common 
interest  centers  in  each  and  every  one  having  a 
job,  and  a  job  that  he  likes  best.  This  is,  to  the 
interest  of  all,  and  a  fact  which  Combine  logically 
teaches.  It  is  a  beautiful  thought,  and  as  rational 
as  it  is  beautiful,  that  there  is  no  menial  labor  in 
the  Combine,  because  there  is  logically  no  em- 
ployer or  employee.  Wages  in  itself  infers  a  hire- 
ling, and  in  itself  means  meniality.  Dividends, 
and  not  wages,  is  the  law  of  Combine.  If  all  are 
shareholders,  every  man  will  naturally  find  the 
employment  for  which  he  has  an  aptitude 
(whether  it  be  mechanical  or  professional),  one 
which  he  likes  best  and  can  do  the  best  for  the 
Combine,  of  which  he  is  a  live,  interested,  active 
part,  and  in  doing  so,  will  be  fully  entitled  to 
his  dividends,  and  as  clearly  so  as  each  of  my 


108  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

sons  are  equally  entitled  to  vote,  and  that  every 
citizen  is  entitled  in  advance  to  protection.  Thus 
humanity  itself,  and  not  wages  or  wealth,  what 
he  iS)  and  not  how  much  he  owns,  will  be  the 
basis. 

"Think  the  whole  matter  over,  my  sons,  and 
if  you  find  that  Combine  is  right,  do  not  be  jealous 
of  him  because  he  succeeds,  or  blame  your  sister 
for  giving  him  both  her  heart  and  hand,  but  try 
to  affiliate  with  him,  and  rest  assured  this  mar- 
riage will  be  to  the  financial  business  interests  of 
all." 


NO   HOME   IN   THE  COMBINE  AGE  WILL   BE   LARGE 

OWN   FAMILY  CAN   CC 


Combine 


When  it  becomes  the 
Americans  to  be  "f&ir  o 
not  until  then. 

The  only  way  for  the 
homes  to  continue  to  ow 
owners  homes  to  keep,  th 
having  one  of  his  own  I 
him  better. 


1  Residence  and  grounds  of  Mr.  Rockefeller. 

2  Residence  and  grounds  of  Mr.  Lazarus. 

3  Residence  and  grounds  of  Consul  to  Germany. 

4  Residence  and  grounds  of  Mayor  of  Chicago. 

5  Residence  of  Stonemason 


Beautiful  home  among  th 
Helper.) 

School-house,    Church  a 
every  day  and   night 
economy  in  the  Combii 

Park  where  American  ch 

Residence  of  Carpenter. 


(FROM    CHOICE)    THAN    ONE    WOMAN    WITH    HER 
^ORTABLY  CARE   FOR. 


bine    self    interest    of    all 
mare"  they  will  be.     But 


r  of  one  of  these  beautiful 
;  to  guarantee  to  all  other 
ne  will  ever  want  his  home, 
>  more  homelike  and  suits 


( belonging  to  a    Plasterers 

musement    Hall    ( occupied 
week.     Thus   representing 

olay  and  grow. 


10 


1 0  Residence  of  Common  School  Teacher. 

1 1  A  home  in  the  country. 

1 2  A  Southern  home. 

1 3  Family  residence  for  a  large  family. 

1 4  Residence  like  childhood  home  in  the  old  country- 


CHAPTER  VII 

ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE 

Ten  years  had  elapsed  since  the  nomination  of 
Judge  Parker,  which  so  distinctly  indicated  the 
exact  moment  of  time  when  Combine  came  into 
actual  and  undisputed  control  of  the  government. 

Lazarus  no  longer  sore  or  poor  (mark  this  fact) 
but  clothed  and  fed  by  the  products  of  his  own  la- 
bor, lived  in  a  home,  a  cottage  of  his  own  build- 
ing, surrounded  by  beautiful  grounds,  he  now  hav- 
ing the  carriage  and  deportment  of  a  man  of 
affairs. 
********* 

"If  I  had  not  heard  that  Lazarus  was  in 
Heaven,  I  would  call  you  Lazarus,"  was  the  kind- 
ly salutation  of  a  stranger. 

"Quite  right;  he  was  my  twin  brother,  as  like  as 
two  grains  of  wheat." 

"I  stand  amazed,  not  so  much  at  the  similarity 
of  face  and  feature,  as  I  am  at  two  destinies. 


109 


110  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

Your  brother  died  of  starvation,  and  you  a 
wealthy  gentleman!  How  could  YOU  be  so 
heartless5?" 

"I  indeed,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  fared  no 
better  than  he,  was  not  rich  as  you  suppose." 

"Your  history  must  be  worth  while;  will  you 
relate  it  to  me,  for  I,  that  speak  to  you,  drove  the 
dogs  away,  and  gave  your  twin  brother  a  penny 
as  I  was  on  my  way  up  to  Philadelphia,  the  City 
of  Brotherly  Love,  to  worship.  I  heard  inci- 
dentally that  he  died  some  time  afterwards." 

"Yes,  so  he  did,  poor  man,  for  charity  is  not 
conducive  to  long  life.  But  at  that  time  I  also 
was  about  to  surrender  to  the  same  fate,  when  a 
stranger,  as  you  were  to  my  brother,  came  my 
way.  He  was  a  business  man,  going  to  the  same 
Philadelphia,  but  on  business.  He  stopped  and 
asked  me  rather  abruptly  'whose  dogs  are  these?' 
I  told  him  they  were  stray  dogs.  He  then  asked 
me  if  I  was  on  a  strike.  I  told  him  'Yes.'  He 
laughed  and  said  I  looked  like  it;  but  I  told  him 
it  was  no  laughing  matter;  I  was  sore  with  scurvy, 
nobody  had  given  me  a  job,  I  was  about  starved, 
and  it  seemed  now  that  these  dogs  were  all  the 
friends  I  had.  He  musingly  said,  'Another  vic- 
tim of  competition/  and  then  he  changed  his  mood 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         ill 

somewhat  and  asked,  'What  are  you  going  to  do*?' 
'Do?'  I  said,  'What  can  I  do  unless  I  get  charity? 
I  will  die;  I  am  almost  starved  now.' 

"  'Charity?  Charity?  Did  you  say  Charity? 
An  American  citizen  asking  charity!  He  ought 
to  starve.'  And  as  he  was  about  to  move  on,  I 
implored  him  to  give  me  something  to  eat.  He 
looked  back  over  his  shoulder  and  said,  'What's 
the  use?  You  may  as  well  die  now  and  be  done 
with  it  as  for  me  to  squander  my  money  on  you 
in  charity,  and  then  you  go  off  and  die  just  the 
same.  I  think  I  can  put  my  money  into  business 
with  a  better  class  of  men  than  such  as  are  con- 
tent to  ask  for  charity,  or  wages  either,  for  that 
matter.  When  all  your  stripe  of  Americans  are 
dead  and  gone  we  will  have  more  room  for  better 
men,  who  have  too  much  self-respect  to  beg  for 
anything.' 

"  'Say,  hold  on,  I  cried;  wait  a  moment.  If  you 
will  not  give  me  a  bite  in  charity,  what  can  I  do?" 

"He  replied  in  a  monotone,  'No  American 
needs  anything  but  a  fair  chance  to  help  himself.' 

"Then  I  asked,  'What  shall  I  first  do  to  help 
myself?' 

"He  said,  'Get  in  beside  me,  for  I  cannot  wait 
another  minute.' 


112  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"My  first  impulse  was  to  say,  'I  cannot,'  but  I 
saw  he  meant  business,  and  I  tried  to  get  up  and  to 
my  utter  amazement,  I  was  able  to,  and  did  get  in 
beside  him  without  the  least  bit  of  help.  (Money- 
less Americans  could  get  into  Combine  if  they 
wanted  to. — Ed.) 

"He  then  told  me  that  his  name  was  Combine. 
We  talked  business.  I  liked  him  and  he  liked 
me  when  we  got  together,  and  now  we  both  wear 
good  clothes,  as  you  see,  and  have  homes  and 
plenty.  I  am  in  the  Combine  with  him.  Both 
of  us  now  ride,  both  are  safe  from  the  ravages  of 
competitive  war.  Combine  rides  and  is  safe, 
financially  safe,  and  that  because  I  ride  and  am 
safe;  and  I  ride  and  am  safe  because  Combine 
rides  and  is  safe.  One  is  safe  because  the  other 
is  safe;  neither  are  or  could  ever  be  safe  unless 
both  are  safe.  This  is  my  story  in  a  nutshell." 

"Combine  must  be  a  good  man." 

"I  never  heard  him  accused  of  being  good." 

"Why,  he  gave  you  a  ride." 

"Yes,  but  because  it  paid  him  better  to  give  me 
a  ride  than  to  bury  me.  It  would  have  been  just 
as  proper  to  call  me  good  because  I  got  in  and  rode 
beside  him,  when  he  asked  me,  and  to  save  him 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         113 

funeral  expenses.  Good  does  not  apply  to  our 
transaction  at  all." 

"Well,  I  cannot  comprehend  you.  I  do  not 
understand  your  language." 

"Oh,  excuse  me;  I  mistook  you  for  an  Ameri- 
can, either  native  or  foreign  born.  Will  you  be 
so  kind  as  to  tell  me  your  name  and  occupation4?" 

"My  name  is  Reform,  which  name  also  tells 
my  occupation.  I  am  a  missionary  from  England, 
a  reformer.  I  believe  and  preach  that  there  is 
nothing  that  will  settle  the  Labor  and  this  awful 
Liquor  question  but  legislation  and  brotherly 
love." 

"Yes!  yes!  Mr.  Reform,  I  have  heard  of  you, 
but  where  have  you  been  for  the  last  ten  years, 
that  you  have  not  heard  that  the  Labor  question 
has  been  satisfactorily  settled;  and  its  settlement 
naturally  has  already  solved  the  Liquor  problem. 
Combine,  sir,  has  solved  both." 

"Where  have  I  been*?  In  England,  to  be  sure. 
Things  got  so  bad  here  in  America  some  ten  years 
ago,  strikes,  lockouts,  drunkenness,  etc.,  that  I 
thought  I  would  leave  Americans  to  their  fate  and 
go  to  England,  but  when  there  I  repented  and 
began  to  study  my  profession,  and  now  I  have 
taken  my  life  in  my  hand  to  come  back  to  America 


114  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

as  a  missionary,  to  preach  Reform  where  it  is  so 
much  needed." 

(Aside: — "This  is  unique;  a  live  reformer, 
American  born,  too,  crossing  the  Atlantic  to  re- 
form or  settle  a  fight  between  labor  and  capital, 
that  was  declared  off  ten  years  ago.  I  must  not 
make  fun  of  his  ignorance,  but  receive  him  kindly 
and  get  him  to  naturalize  and  become  once  more 
an  American.") 

"Mr.  Reform,  I  am  very  glad  to  have  met  you, 
and  after  you  have  taken  a  rest  and  looked  around 
a  little  and  before  you  begin  preaching  reform, 
I  hope  you  will  permit  me  to  have  some  kindly 
talks  with  you.  Have  you  been  assigned  to  a 
home?" 

"I  do  not  understand  what  you  mean  by  'as- 
signed to  a  home.'  America  used  to  be  said  to 
be  a  free  country.  I  hope  you  do  not  mean  sent 
to  prison,  but  I  can  expect  nothing  better,  as  a 
result  of  strikes,  lockouts,  drunkenness,  that  I 
escaped  from  ten  years  ago,  which  must  have  got 
worse  and  worse,  of  course,  but  I  come  now  in 
a  missionary  spirit,  prepared  to  be  sent  to  prison 
or  anywhere,  only  that  I  may  preach  reform.  Re- 
form is  both  my  name  and  nature." 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         115 

"To  assure  you  that  we  are  not  going  to  send 
you  to  prison,  please  come  home  with  me  and 
share  with  me ;  be  my  guest  for  I  perceive  you  are 
not  only  in  need  of  information,  but  of  a  friend. 
Now,  this  is  your  room  for  tonight.  Please  make 
yourself  at  home."  *  *  *  *  *  * 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Reform;  have  you  had  a 
good  night's  rest?" 

"Thank  you;  I  feel  very  much  refreshed,  but 
more  puzzled,  and  most  of  all  amazed  at  the  evi- 
dences of  peace  that  I  see  from  your  observatory, 
and  from  a  morning  walk  in  your  garden,  and  the 
apparent  contenment  of  your  home  life  and  that 
of  your  family.  At  a  proper  time  and  place,  I 
have  many  questions  to  ask." 

"Very  well;  after  breakfast  will  be  a  proper 
time  and  my  parlor  a  proper  place." 

"You  say  your  name  is  Lazarus,  a  synonym  of 
poverty,  and  yet  now  that  this  cottage  and  these 
grounds  here  belong  to  you?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Now  my  first  question  is,  if  Lazarus  is  sup- 
plied by  such  evidences  of  comfort  as  these,  in 
what  style  does  a  Dives  live1?" 

"If  this  home  is  my  ideal — and  it  is — his  home 
can  be  no  better  than  his  ideal  can  it?  That  is, 


116  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

rich  men  are  at  liberty  to  build  for  themselves  ac- 
cording to  their  tastes  as  well  as  poor  men,  and 
many,  if  not  most  of  them  surround  themselves 
with  home  comforts  less  elaborate  than  mine. 
They,  of  all  men,  seem  to  prefer  simplicity  of 
adornment,  and  to  rest  in  the  assurance.  The  as- 
surance is  everything.  Combine  insures  us  all 
against  possible  disaster  or  loss.  The  Combine  is 
insurance  personified,  and  that  is  what  men  have 
sought  and  longed  for,  all  being  thus  assured, 
simultaneously  with  it  comes  a  new  purpose,  these 
nil  the  mind  and  heart;  the  purpose  of  inclusion 
is  now  the  motive  of  life,  the  inclusion  found  only 
in  a  Combine,  intended  to  include  all  the  people. 
The  exclusion  of  competition  becomes  a  thing  of 
the  past." 

"Am  I  to  understand  that  you  have  no  rich  men 
now?' 

"Certainly  we  have;  why  not*?  Combine  is  not 
designed  to  make  a  man  poor,  it  is  to  even  up 
wealth;  if  a  man  ever  had  property,  Combine 
bought  it  and  paid  him  for  it,  and  the  man  has  the 
money  to  spend  as  he  pleases.  To  be  sure,  there 
is  no  necessity  now  to  lay  it  up,  for  the  Combine, 
by  industrial  cooperation,  is  continually  produc- 
ing and  by  its  wonderful  'system'  of  distribution, 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         H7 

gives  equal  dividends  to  all  shareholders,  which 
practically  means,  all  the  people,  that  is,  every 
American  citizen,  and  becoming  a  citizen  is  equi- 
valent to  getting  into  the  Combine,  now  that 
every  American  is  made  a  shareholder." 

"You  amaze  me,  but  what  reform  party 
brought  all  this  about?" 

"Reform?  Reform  party?  Why,  my  dear  man, 
Combine  is  not  a  reform  in  any  sense.  It  is  dis- 
tinctly business  rivals  becoming  allies,  agoing  in 
an  opposite  direction.  Hence  the  word  reform 
does  not  apply,  neither  does  the  word  party,  be- 
cause our  Combine  means  all,  the  whole,  rather 
than  a  part  or  party." 

"Excuse  me,  Mr.  Lazarus,  but  I  meant  to  ask 
what  political  party  brought  these  industrial  con- 
ditions about?" 

"Combine,  my  dear  sir,  was  not,  is  not,  nor 
ever  can  be  political.  It  is  clearly  an  industrial 
matter;  any  political  party  was  indeed  a  hin- 
drance. Anything  was  competent  to  be  a  stum- 
bling block  to  legitimate  industrial  combination, 
but  industry  in  itself  is  fundamental,  politics  is 
supplemental,  one  little  element  when  compared 
with  the  life  purpose,  'making  a  living.'  Industry 
is  the  whole  body;  politics  is  but  an  appendage  of 


118  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

industry,  said  to  be  a  caudal  appendage  at  that, 
useful  but  rather  as  an  ornament;  so  to  inquire 
what  party,  is  equivalent  to  asking  what  tail  is 
instrumental  in  wagging  the  dog.  Let  me  im- 
press upon  you  that  America  has  evolved  into,  has 
come  around  to  an  Industrial  Universe,  and  that 
Universe  is  popularly  called  'Combine,'  but  more 
logically  called  'System,'  which  is  as  truly  an 
industrial  center  as  the  sun  is  the  center  of  the 
solar  'system.'  No  word  is  more  apt,  or  applic- 
able. 'Order  (system)  is  Heaven's  first  law.'  We 
have  hitched  industry  'our  wagon  to  the  stars,'  re- 
duced 'making  a  living'  to  a  'system,'  by  the  ex- 
tension of  the  Corporation  Act  to  all  the  people. 
On  that  day,  ten  years  ago,  that  I  got  in  with 
Combine,  I  just  began  to  live.  My  regret  is  that 
Combine,  instead  of  Reform,  if  you  please,  did 
not  pass  my  brother's  way  before  he  died.  You 
perceive,  sir,  I  have  a  real  grievance,  and  you  will 
pardon  me  for  repeating  the  fact  that  reform,  as 
it  is  applied  to  the  Labor  and  Liquor  questions, 
is  a  deception,  'a  delusion  and  a  snare.'  I  do  not 
mean  to  be  rude  to  you,  but  I  tell  you  as  if  you 
were  my  twin  brother  to  change  your  name,  and 
never  mention  reform  again.  Combine  is  the  only 
way,  and  it  is  fortunate  that  the  people  saw  ten 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         119 

years  ago  that  it  was  the  only  way,  else  some  other 
subterfuge  like  the  labor  unions  on  the  one  side 
and  the  Citizen's  Alliance  arrayed  on  the  other, 
or  a  government  ownership  fad,  or  a  socialism, 
meaning  just  anything  or  nothing.  These  sincere 
men  deserve  just  credit  because  they  cared;  they 
wanted  to  help  while  many  of  the  others  did  not 
care.  Yet  the  masses  weary  and  confused  by  'Lo 
here!  Lo  there!'  listening  to  everything  but  the 
'as  ye  would'  law  of  the  Galilean,  which  echoing 
down  the  ages  until  it  culminates  in  one  word 
'Combine,'  meaning  first,  law,  industrial  law, 
second,  prophets,  the  Gospels.  That  is  the  order; 
read  it  for  yourself.  You  will  find  it  in  Matthew 
7:12.  There  was  no  other  way  but  to  resolve  our- 
selves into  a  business  combine  of  the  whole  people, 
then  incorporate  as  a  whole  people,  and  when  thus 
incorporated  we  could  do,  we  did  do,  and  we 
naturally  will  do  unto  other  shareholders  as  we 
would  have  other  shareholders  do  unto  us,  just  as 
Standard  Oil  shareholders  did  in  1904,  so  does 
all  the  people  in  this  year  of  our  Lord  1915." 

"When  you  have  time,  please  give  me  a  syn- 
opsis of  what  did  lead  the  people  to  the  adoption 
of  the  Combine  idea."  ***** 


120  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"Civilization  becoming  actually  'Christian- 
ized,' that  is,  it  was  seen  as  soon  as  we  were  suf- 
ficiently civilized,  that  Combine  and  progress 
were  synonymous  terms  and  to  progress — to  go 
forward,  we  must  inevitably  combine,  and  to  com- 
bine is  progress.  When  Americans  got  their  heads 
together  they  agreed  that  the  'Corporation  Act' 
was  a  righteous  act  logically  from  its  beginning, 
yet  without  malice,  it  had  unavoidably  granted  a 
special  privilege  to  those  in  the  corporation.  This 
wras  seen  to  be  un-American;  that  is,  not  fof,  for 
and  by  all  the  people,'  but  there  appeared  to  be 
no  way  to  help  it,  yet  from  the  first  it  seemed  to 
prove  a  real  hardship  to  those  not  in  the  corpora- 
tion, and  as  the  years  went  by,  it  became  finally 
an  unbearable  burden  to  those  left  on  the  outside 
of  the  corporation.  What  was  to  be  done? 
Surely  something  must  be  done.  Some  cried  one 
thing  and  some  another.  Laws  were  enacted,  le- 
gal steps  were  taken  and,  strange  to  say,  the  same 
government  that  authorized  the  corporation,  had 
in  its  frenzy  wantonly  proceeded  to  cripple  it, 
cripple  its  own  child  by  unfriendly  legislation. 
'A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  long 
stand.'  It  finally  became  apparent  that  the  Cor- 
poration Act  either  must  be  annulled  entirely,  or 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         121 

all  the  people  must  be  taken  into  it.  This  last 
seemed,  at  the  first  thought,  preposterous,  but 
even  the  enemies  of  Combine  were  not  in  favor  of 
annulling  the  Corporation  Act,  so  clearly  then, 
the  other  alternative  must  be  adopted.  There  was 
no  middle  ground.  Added  light  in  time  clearly 
revealed  the  fact  that  all  that  was  really  wrong 
about  the  Corporation  Act  after  all  was  the 
'special'  privilege  it  carried  with  it.  Now,  if  all 
the  people  could  be  admitted  to  the  enjoyment  of 
all  the  privileges  of  the  corporation,  this  would 
logically  remove  the  'special'  idea  entirely,  which 
was  now  admitted  to  be  the  only  objectionable 
point.  This,  it  was  finally  seen,  would  fulfill  the 
prophecy  of  the  word  'equal'  found  in  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  which  up  to  this  time,  had 
been  without  any  meaning  to  many  and  without  a 
full  meaning  to  any.  Industry  cof,  for  and  by  all 
the  people'  when  being  read  into  that  word, 
'equal,'  gave  a  new  meaning,  amounting  to  a  re- 
velation; government  'of,  for  and  by  all  the  peo- 
ple' had  proved  good  so  far  as  it  had  gone,  but  it 
was  only  as  the  vestibule  to  a  closed  auditorium, 
a  gateway  to  an  unexplored  field,  a  field  after- 
wards found  to  be  of  wonderful  resources, 
amounting  in  its  resources  to  an  insurance  against 


122  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

poverty,  and  for  all  the  people,  for  all  time,  from 
which,  under  competition,  no  one  had  ever  been 
exempt,  nor  ever  could  be  exempt.  All  Ameri- 
cans then  began  working  together  as  industrial 
allies,  as  in  one  Combine  'of,  for  and  by  all  the 
people,3  practically  as  they  fought  together 
against  a  national  enemy,  educating  all  to  help, 
rather  than  hinder,  a  training  to  'do  as  we  would 
be  done  by,'  rather  than  every  fellow  for  himself 
— as  had  been  the  business  policy. 

"But  fear  of  want  and  love  of  luxury  was  not 
the  only  motive  to  induce  Americans  to  combine. 
Honor,  that  has  impelled  the  soldier  to  do  his  best, 
is  here  a  higher  incentive  than  wealth.  Diligence 
in  service,  righteously  should  always  lead  the  way 
to  promotion,  to  social  distinction,  to  public  re- 
pute. So  you  see  we  have  harnessed  up  all  these 
higher  motives.  On  the  other  hand,  we  found 
that  brutal,  sordid,  insatiable  greed  did  not  finan- 
cially pay  Americans  in  dealing  with  each  other. 
So  we  combined  as  a  whole,  thus  forestalling 
greed  by  appropriating  all  the  privileges  of  the 
'Corporate  Act'  for  all  the  people,  eliminating 
the  words,  'special,'  'menial,'  'wages,'  'employer,' 
'employee,'  etc.,  and  that  by  the  consent  and  en- 
dorsement of  the  rich  and  poor  alike,  giving  them 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         123 

something  they  all  knew,  the  moment  they  thought 
it  out,  to  be  better — combination  instead  of  com- 
petition." 

"Did  not  this  Combine  of  all  the  people  prac- 
tically confiscate  the  property  of  the  rich?" 

"By  no  means;  but  on  the  contrary,  I  need  but 
to  remind  you  of  the  ordinary  powers  and  habits 
of  corporations  from  the  beginning,  to  answer, 
that  the  ability  of  a  combine  to  buy,  is  only  lim- 
ited by  its  resources;  so  naturally,  the  resources 
of  all  the  people  combined  were  greater  than  the 
value  of  property  owned  by  any  one  of  them 
singly,  and  so  this  Combine  of  all  the  people  was 
logically  able  to  buy  all  productive  property.  The 
Combine  was  also  secured  as  it  now  had  all  the 
property.  In  a  word,  we  followed  in  the  legal 
steps  of  legal  combines  and  of  competent  men 
who  themselves  were  a  part  and  parcel  now  of  the 
Combine." 

"But  as  I  remember  the  American  people  ten 
years  ago,  many  of  them  would  be  so  stubborn 
that  they  would  not  sell  at  any  price." 

"Men  are  not  stubborn,  we  find,  unless  they 
think  they  have  an  advantage.  Again,  men  are 
reasonable  if  you  approach  them  properly. 
Again,  men  will  sell  any  item  of  productive  prop- 


124  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

erty  (homes  are  not  productive  property)  the  mo- 
ment the  inducement  is  sufficient.  The  great 
inducement  of  this  Combine  of  all  the 
people  is  and  was  not  price  at  all  but 
the  positively  reliable  insurance  of  'a  living' 
for  themselves  and  their  families,  and  that 
for  all  time.  The  ideal  of  individual  ownership, 
this  innate  desire  of  every  American,  was  actually 
realized  the  moment  every  citizen  became  a  share- 
holder— each  now  in  a  Combine,  and  positively 
no  one  was  left  out  to  antagonize  it,  to  compete 
against  it,  thus  making  it  safe.  So,  a  Combine 
that  had  not,  nor  ever  could  have  an  opponent  or 
rival  was  safe — surely  safe.  Combine  naturally 
puts  a  man — every  man — in  position  to  choose 
aright — where  they  dare  to  trust  each  other." 

"I  stand  amazed  at  my  own  stupidity  in  not 
seeing  before  I  went  to  England,  the  trend  of 
financial  affairs;  the  inducement  that  such  a  Com- 
bine could  give  to  all  the  people  must  soon  be  ac- 
cepted, but  I  am  still  inquisitive  to  know  exactly 
how  you  settled  with  property  owners." 

"I  can  best  answer  your  question  by  an  extract 
from  'Capital  and  Labor,'  the  first  book  ever  pub- 
lished advocating  Combine  as  the  way  out.  It 
was  published  twelve  years  ago: 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         125 

"'Take  for  the  estimate  that  an  average  family 
of  five  (America  stands  for  the  family  and  the 
home)  having  their  own  home,  free  from  rent  or 
taxes,  could  nicely  live  on  twelve  hundred  dollars 
yearly  dividends.  It  would  take  forty  thousand 
dollars  at  three  per  cent  interest  to  equal  this 
yearly  dividend;  so,  taking  forty  thousand  dollars 
as  the  necessary  stock  or  share  for  each  family  of 
five,  this  forty  thousand  dollars  serves  as  an  equi- 
table basis,  or  face  value  of  stock  necessary  for 
the  settlement  of  claims  of  original  owners.  If 
he  owned  just  forty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
any  kind  of  productive  property,  he  transferred 
it  to  the  Combine,  and  took  Combine  stock;  thus 
each  individual's  share  of  stock  amounted  to 
eight  thousand  dollars  in  the  Combine." 

"But  suppose  the  individual  owned  more  or  less 
than  the  eight  thousand  dollars'?" 

"If  more,  he  was  paid  in  the  bonds  of  the  Com- 
bine; if  less,  the  difference  was  made  up  to  that 
amount,  by  the  enabling  act,  enacted  by  the  Com- 
bine to  meet  the  case." 

"I  think  I  do  see  in  this,  not  a  reform,  not  a 
brotherly  love,  but  a  purely  business  transaction, 
as  well  as  a  simple  extension  of  the  equality  of 


126  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

the  Declaration  of  Independence,  on  into  indus- 
try. Am  I  right  ?" 

"Yes,  sir;  quite  right." 

"Then  please  go  on." 

"Labor  at  once  became  honorary,  instead  of 
compulsory,  and  men  being  shareholders  were  thus 
placed  on  their  honor  as  well  as  their  self-interest. 
So  great  is  the  self-respect  of  our  people  now  that 
they  would  refuse  to  eat,  rather  than  to  accept  a 
thing  in  charity — that  they  had  not  honorably 
paid  for — that  they  were  not  entitled  to — and  for 
having  done  their  best  to  earn — that  best  be  it 
great  or  small.  This  change  of  motive  is  the  visi- 
ble difference  between  the  competition  of  ten  years 
ago  and  the  combination  of  today,  January  first, 
1915. 

"Am  I  to  understand  you  now  have  no  lazy 
people?" 

"Practically  none;  to  be  called  lazy  is  to  be 
called  a  thief,  and  resented  as  an  insult,  and  is 
looked  upon  as  a  crime.  And  why  not?  The 
man  that  steals  the  time  of  the  Combine  steals  its 
most  valuable  asset." 

"But  some  men  are  able  to  do  twice  as  much 
as  others  in  the  same  length  of  time." 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         127 

"True,  but  the  humane  basis  is  'Best/  any 
child  can  do  its  best,  and  let  me  assure  you  that 
best  is  perfectly  satisfactory  to  all.  But  regard- 
ing laziness,  our  Board  of  Health,  composed 
mostly  of  medical  men  who,  having  this  whole 
matter  in  charge,  find  a  thousand  cases  where  re- 
straint is  necessary  to  prevent  overwork,  to  one 
of  laziness.  This  charge  of  laziness  carries  with 
it  not  only  disgrace,  but  corporal  punishment  for 
stealing  time.  Yet  work  without  leisure  kills  as 
surely  as  leisure  without  exercise,  and  now  that 
all  do  their  respective  parts,  our  work  is  but 
healthy  exercise." 

"I  have  learned  by  what  you  have  said,  first, 
that  the  labor  question  is  settled  by  business  inter- 
ests popularly  called  Combine;  second,  that  every 
man  is  of  commercial  value  to  the  Combine. 
Hence  the  Combine  is  financially  interested  in  not 
only  every  man  being  always  ready  for  work,  but 
able  to  do  his  part.  I  can  see  without  being 
told  that  this  makes  the  health  of  every  man,  wo- 
man and  child  of  America  of  actual  business  im- 
portance to  the  Combine,  and  from  the  cradle  to 
the  grave.  This  practically  puts  the  Combine 
Board  of  Health  in  control  of  food,  drink,  cloth- 
ing, and  any  and  everything  that  pertains  to  the 


128  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

health  of  each  and  every  individual  born  under 
the  flag.  This  logically  settles  the  liquor  question, 
entirely  by  business  interests,  and  in  such  a  way 
that  it  must  forever  stay  settled,  because  every 
American  is  in  the  Combine,  including  both  liquor 
men  and  prohibitionists,  formerly  so  called ;  third, 
that  now  every  citizen  becomes  a  shareholder  in 
the  Combine  by  virtue  of  his  or  her  citizenship. 
Now  I  must  ask,  is  every  immigrant  that  comes  to 
America  admitted  as  a  citizen,  hence  into  the 
Combine?" 

"By  no  manner  of  means.  The  immigration 
law  of  the  Combine  (the  Combine  relieves  the 
government  now)  is  very  strict,  almost  prohibi- 
tory. Take  your  own  case.  You  may  have  been 
amazed  at  my  verdancy  in  taking  you,  an  immi- 
grant, into  my  family.  You  need  not  to  have 
been  surprised.  The  fact  that  you  were  admitted 
on  shipboard  at  Liverpool  bound  for  America  was 
one  recommendation.  The  fact  that  your  papers 
successfully  run  the  gauntlet  of  Combine  at  New 
York  is  another.  Then,  if  you  are  a  person  of  bad 
moral  character,  you  do  not  look  like  it;  your 
looks  recommend  you.  When  you  go  to  make  ap- 
plication for  your  naturalization  papers  all  these 
facts  will  be  most  thoroughly  sifted.  You  will 


Every  American  family  can  naturally  have  some  such 
home  in  the  Combine  age. 


American  voting  may  be  considered  the 
way  of  dividing  up  the  Government 
equally  among  Americans.  Combine, 
the  way  of  dividing  up  productions  among 
producers,  if  one  shareholder  is  entitled  to 
a  home  like  this,  so  is  every  shareholder. 


Combine  is  here  to  stay,  it  need  only  to  be  Amercan- 
ized,  to  build  some  such  homes  as  these  for  every 
American. 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         129 

be  required  to  pass  as  rigid  an  examination  by  the 
Board  of  Health  of  the  Combine  as  you  would 
formerly  have  had  to  pass  to  get  into  the  best  in- 
surance company,  for  the  Combine  is  practically 
an  up-to-date  insurance  company.  America  is  not 
a  hospital  for  foreigners.  So  you  see,  you  may 
be  deported  yet,  but  I  hope  that  so  genial  a  man 
as  you  seem  to  be,  will  pass  all  examinations  and 
be  admitted.  All  those  born  under  the  flag  natu- 
rally belong  to  us,  healthy  or  unhealthy,  and  it  is 
Combine's  financial  business  to  see  that  the  child's 
parents,  especially  the  child's  mother,  have  a 
home,  a  cottage  and  grounds  of  her  own,  as  se- 
clusive  as  a  bird  in  its  own  nest,  and  that  both 
mother  and  child  have  proper  food,  clothing,  fresh 
air,  sunshine,  everything  to  develop  a  stout,  able 
workman.  It's  surely  a  matter  of  business." 

"Whether  or  not  I  am  ever  admitted  again  as 
a  citizen  of  the  country  I  left  in  dismay  but  ten 
years  ago,  I  can  now  see  the  genius  of  the  Com- 
bine idea,  and  approve  it,  as  it  has  slowly  but  tri- 
umphantly developed  out  of  the  Corporation  Act. 
Now,  if  I  may,  I  ask  you  one  more  question,  Mr. 
Lazarus." 

"Say  on." 


130  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"What  were  the  very  first  steps  that  led  up  to 
the  inauguration  of  the  Combine,  ten  years  ago? 
I  will  be  content  with  a  brief  answer." 

"Immediately  after  the  inauguration  of  the 
President  in  the  spring  of  1905,  it  being  admitted 
by  all  thinkers  that  Combine  had  full  possession 
of  both  political  parties,  hence  full  possession  of 
the  government,  that  fact  made  necessary  an  en- 
tirely new  course  of  procedure.  A  Combine  of  all 
the  people  was  prepared  and  thought  out  in  1907. 
Congress  passed  an  'Enabling  Act,3  authorizing 
the  Secretary  of  Commerce  to  grant  Incorporation 
Papers  to  a  business  association  including  not  only 
all  the  railroads,  all  the  telegraph,  all  public  utili- 
ties, but  all  productive  property,  and  in  the  in- 
terest of  all  the  people,  extending  to  all  the  peo- 
ple, thus  associated  the  corporate  right  to  buy  all 
productive  property,  stipulating  its  rights  and 
powers,  as  was  familiar  to  incorporation  at  that 
time.  The  Great  Seal  of  the  Secretary  of  Com- 
merce being  in  due  time  set  to  this,  the  greatest 
industrial  document  ever  written,  authorizing  all 
Americans  in  their  own  corporate  name  to  defi- 
nitely begin  business  on  their  own  account  as  a 
close  corporation.  I  need  not  here  particularize 
the  great  work  of  buying  out  previous  owners,  and 


ACTUALLY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE         131 

paying  for  all  property.  Suffice  to  say  here  that 
the  business  proceedings  were  conducted  on  busi- 
ness methods,  familiar  to  all  financiers  at  that 
time  and  concurred  in  by  all  the  people,  there  be- 
ing practically  no  difference  in  business  procedures 
from  the  great  and  self-respecting  corporations  of 
that  time,  except  in  the  motive  and  personnel  of 
the  shareholders.  From  a  select  and  favored  few, 
the  scope  was  extended  to  all  the  people.  All  be- 
ing Americans,  all  were  naturally  equal  share- 
holders, all  worth  more  than  $40,000,  had  a  bal- 
ance in  gold  or  in  the  security  of  the  great  Corpo- 
ration as  good  as  gold. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE 

"From  what  I  learned  from  Mr.  Lazarus,  I  knew 
my  mission  as  a  reformer  was  gone.  Would  I  be 
human  and  not  regret  it?  What  would  have  been 
the  chagrin  of  an  old-time  prize  fighter  to  have 
gone  across  the  continent  to  meet  an  antagonist  to 
find  when  he  got  there  that  his  burly  foe  had  been 
converted?  We  have  got  to  admit  that  it  does 
take  a  little  time  for  us  to  swallow  a  disappoint- 
ment, even  if  we  know  it  will  amount  to  a  real 
blessing  to  us.  I  was  as  cheerful  as  may  be,  after 
my  lengthy  talk  with  Mr.  Lazarus,  and  I  spent  the 
remainder  of  that  day  in  studying  up-to-date 
maps  and  literary  periodicals  and  comments  on 
current  events.  I  confess  to  my  surprise  not  so 
much  at  finding  on  the  shelves  of  the  family  li- 
brary many  new  books,  as  I  was  at  finding  on  the 
table  some  of  the  old  magazines  and  newspapers, 
still  published  and  popular.  As  I  turned  over  the 


132 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  133 

familiar  pages  of  the  Youth's  Companion  my  eyes 
grew  moist,  as  at  meeting  an  old  friend.  I  finally 
laid  it  down  and  said,  half  audibly,  'What  a  clean 
paper.'  To  get  a  bird's-eye  view  I  took  up  the 
Review  of  Reviews  and  read  well  into  the  night, 
and,  then  laying  it  down,  tried  to  think  out  the 
real  difference,  after  all,  that  the  advent  of  the 
Combine  Age  had  brought. 

"Weary  with  a  day  of  intense  thought  and  lit- 
tle exercise,  stepped  out  into  the  open,  when  it 
occurred  to  me  to  take  an  electric  car  ride  before 
retiring  for  the  night.  A  car  drew  up  at  my  signal ; 
it  was  well  filled  and,  stranger-like,  I  noticed 
everything  closely,  especially  wondering  why  the 
conductor  did  not  leave  his  post  of  observation 
and  come  down  to  collect  my  fare.  In  fact,  I  be- 
gan watching  him  so  closely  as  to  forget  all  else, 
until  I  made  bold  to  ask  a  well  dressed  elderly 
lady  why  the  conductor  did  not  attend  more 
promptly  to  his  duty,  that  he  had  not  yet  been 
around  for  my  fare  and  that  I  had  ridden  more 
than  a  mile  already.  She  very  politely  said,  (I 
think  you  must  be  a  stranger  in  America.5  I  as- 
sured her  that  I  had  been  away  for  more  than  ten 
years.  'That  accounts  for  it,5  she  said.  'We 
Americans  are  now  all  so  interested  in  each  other's 


134  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

financial  welfare  (caring  for  other  shareholders 
being  the  only  sure  way  of  being  cared  for  our- 
selves) that  each  has  his  memorandum  cards  upon 
which  we  keep  tally  of  our  own  car  rides/ 

"With  a  feeling  that  such  a  trusting  people 
were  also  most  likely  to  be  trustworthy,  I  formed 
an  inward  resolve  that  they  would  not  lose  any- 
thing by  me,  and,  knowing  that  I  would  have  a 
chance  later  on  to  properly  settle  my  car  fare,  I 
gave  myself  up  to  the  luxury  of  my  surroundings, 
the  elegance  of  the  car,  the  mellow  electric  light- 
ing of  the  country  road,  the  snug  cottages,  the 
shapely  grounds,  the  romping  children,  in  a  word, 
the  'home'  life. 

"Having  ridden  as  far  as  I  cared  to  in  that  di- 
rection, I  took  a  return  car  for  the  house  of  Mr. 
Lazarus.  The  thought  of  my  loneliness  came  over 
me;  a  feeling  as  though  I  need  so  much  a  compan- 
ion to  talk  to  of  what  I  saw  and  was  turning  in 
my  mind.  Truly,  'it  was  not  good  that  man 
should  be  alone.'  (Genesis  2:18.)  The  ride  had 
revealed  so  much,  and  I  said  to  myself,  'If  this  is 
all  brought  about  by  the  change  of  motive — sel- 
fishness to  self-interest,  or,  in  other  words,  from 
competition  to  combination — surely  this  is  what 
the  Master  meant  to  teach  by  his  'Whatsoever  ye 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  135 

would5  law,  in  Matthew  7:12.'     I  remembered 
what  the  lady  in  the  car  said;  it  had  been  ringing 
in  my  ears  all  evening.    'The  Americans  are  all  so 
interested  in  each  other's  financial  welfare,  i.  e., 
caring  for  others  being  the  only  sure  way  of  being 
cared  for  ourselves,  that  each  has  a  memorandum 
card  upon  which  we  keep  tally  of  our  own  car 
rides.3  Trusted4?  That's  what  it  meant;  it  thrilled 
me.    Trusted?    Is  it  possible  that  humanity  had 
been  struggling  along,  not  trusting  but  competing, 
fighting  for  nineteen  hundred  years   and  never 
dropped  into  industrial  combination  until  now, 
and  here  in  America?     'The  trust  trusted,'  is  the 
secret.     The  car  stopped  in  front  of  a  massive 
building  and  was  soon  filled  to  overflowing.     I 
asked  a  gentleman  who  fit  in  next  to  me  who  these 
well    dressed    and    well    behaved    people    were. 
'Church  is  just  out,'  he  replied.    'Do  all  the  people 
attend  church  now?'  I  innocently  inquired,  for 
when  I  left  America  ten  years  ago  few  people  at- 
tended church  and  the  number  was  becoming  less 
and  less.'     T  remember  it,'  he  replied,  'but  the 
advent  of  the  Combine  Age  has  changed  all  that.' 
Insistent  on  knowing  more,  I  asked  how?     He 
looked  at  me  as  if  surprised.     'Well  you  do  seem 
to  be  a  stranger,  permit  me  to  remind  you  that 


136  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

then  men — all  men — were  compelled  to  compete 
or  go  hungry  and  competitors  did  not  feel  like 
worshipping  and  did  not  attend  the  place 
of  worship  but  rather  like  Adam  tried  to 
hide  themselves  away  from  God.  They  did 
not  even  care  to  meet  the  people  on 
Sunday  that  they  had  tried  to  take  trade  ad- 
vantage of  for  the  last  six  days,  and  still  expected 
to  try  and  do  so  for  the  next  six  days,  so  that  the 
very  instinct  of  consistency  kept  them  away  from 
church.'  Then  I  said  I  did  remember,  but  to  cor- 
roborate what  I  had  been  told  I  gasped  in  my  in- 
tensity and  asked  if  men  did  not  try  to  take  the 
best  in  every  trade  deal;  do  they  not  try  to  cheat 
each  other  now  *?  Seeing  my  perturbation  he  said, 
in  a  fatherly  kind  of  way,  'Why  bless  you  no,  the 
motive  is  combine  now,  then  it  was  competition, 
just  the  reverse — now  that  men  have  a  chance — 
have  learned  the  way  to  be  fair — to  help  in  all 
business  affairs  and  still  make  money,  more 
money,  the  most  money,  as  Christ  assured  them 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago  that  square  dealing 
would  be  the  result.  To  attend  church  is  but 
natural  now. 

"It  was  now  after  usual  bed  time,  and  I  remem- 
bered that  Mr.  Lazarus  had  not  given  me  a  key 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  137 

to  the  room  that  he  had  so  generously  assigned  to 
me  for  my  very  own  use,  so  I  chid  myself  because 
I  would  be  under  the  necessity  of  waking  him ;  but 
as  I  gently  tried  the  door  it  opened  noiselessly  and  I 
noticed  for  the  first  time  that  the  door  had  no  lock. 
As  I  stood  holding  it  ajar  my  mind  took  up  the 
significance  of  this  little  fact — no  lock.  Why,  I 
said  to  myself,  of  course  not;  trust  is  written  on 
everything  and  everybody,  not  with  the  hideous 
mien  of  the  tiger,  the  octopus,  but  one  beautiful 
word,  trust.  Trust  in  God,  the  religiously  in- 
clined would  say;  others  can  only  venture  into  the 
first  word  of  the  phrase,  trust.  If  not  'in  God' 
have  we  got  to  where  we  can  trust  in  man,  who  is 
made  in  the  image  of  God?  Yes,  I  can  and  do 
see  that  financial  self-interest  ought  and  does  im- 
pel us  all  to  trust,  as  the  best  way  to  be  trusted. 
With  my  door  not  locked  against  me,  and  my  fare 
unpaid,  I  somehow  felt  I  was  trusted,  and  a  firm 
strong  uplift  of  soul  possessed  me,  new  in  its  sen- 
sation. A  new  motive  inspired  me,  and  as  I  stood 
there  alone,  I  felt  that  I  developed  into  a  real 
man.  I  felt  that  any  man  can  be  a  man  when  he 
is  trusted  and  if  this  is  what  combine  has  taught 
Americans  to  be,  I'll  be  an  American,  so  help  me 
God.  With  this  feeling  I  went  to  bed. 


138  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"Presently  the  sun  was  shining  in  my  window, 
so  short  had  been  the  night;  all  nature  seemed  to 
be  glad,  and  why  not;  the  Master  inferred  that  if 
we  complied  with  the  logical  'Do  as  you  would 
be  done  by,'  that  obedience  to  this  financial  busi- 
ness rule  would  give  us  glad  eyes  to  the  better  see ; 
glad  hearts  that  we  could  the  better  feel,  a  glad 
motive  akin  to  His  motive,  a  motive  to  help,  to 
combine  and  not  to  hinder,  to  compete.  As  I  lay 
thinking,  my  mind  turned  upon  strength  in  the 
abstract,  comparison  of  strengths,  of  God,  of  Com- 
bine, of  Competition,  I  musingly  said,  from  the 
sublime  to  the  ridiculous. 

"I  was  greeted  at  the  breakfast  table  with  the 
kindly  salutations  of  an  old  acquaintance,  by  the 
children's  'trust  me,'  and  I  intuitively  returned 
the  salutation,  'trust  me.'  (I  found  afterwards 
'Trust  me'  to  be  the  salutation  of  the  Combine 
Age.)  As  we  still  sat  at  the  table,  I  addressed  to 
Mrs.  Lazarus  the  question :  'Can  it  be  technically 
true  that  you  really  have  no  poor  people?'  She 
modestly  replied,  'To  answer  your  question  by 
yes,  that  is  true,  would  not  be  as  convincing  to  you 
as  to  ask  you  a  synonymous  question:  Can  it  be 
true  that  every  American  citizen,  rich  or  poor,  is 
protected  by  the  flag?  My  mind  ran  briskly 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  139 

back  to  ten  years  ago,  when  I  had  been  a  citizen 
under  that  flag;  how  an  insignificant  missionary, 
Miss  Stone,  had  been  protected  in  Bulgaria,  and 
had  she  not  been  returned  on  demand,  Uncle 
Sam's  navy  and  army,  too,  would  have  been  used 
for  her  protection;  how  that  not  one  citizen  was 
left  out  unprotected  by  that  flag.  Does  she  mean 
that  the  Combine  protects  like  that*?  I  dare  not 
ask  her.  I  knew  it  did;  she  had  said  the  truth. 
Not  one  little  American  then  could  be  left  out  of 
the  Combine  without  a  real  home.  I  did  not  need 
to  be  wise  to  know  the  reason.  Did  I  or  any  one 
not  know  that  in  the  case  of  government,  if  one 
citizen  were  left  out,  the  contiguity  of  the  entire 
government  would  fall  into  fragments  about  our 
heads ;  so  if  one  little  citizen  shareholder  were  left 
out  of  the  Combine  of  shareholders,  unprotected, 
uncared  for,  unsecured,  every  share  in  that  com- 
bine in  like  manner  would  crumble,  and  no  share 
would  be  worth  the  paper  it  was  written  upon. 
This  must  be  as  true  of  the  Combine  'of,  for  and 
by'  all  the  people  as  it  is  or  can  be  true  of  the 
government  'of,  for  and  by'  the  people,  and  if 
true  of  one,  we  intuitively  know  it  must  be  true 
of  the  other?  Aye,  both  are  true,  by  the  eternal 
fitness  of  things. 


140  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"I  was  in  a  brown  study  for  so  long  that  she  be- 
gan to  apologize  by  saying,  1  did  not  intend  to  be 
rude.7  I  immediately  rallied  and  assured  her  it 
was  the  aptness  of  her  question  that  staggered  me 
and  that  while  I  hesitated,  every  vestige  of  re- 
maining mist  had  cleared  away  and  that  I  could 
now  answer  my  own  question  that  it  was  impossi- 
ble for  any  one  shareholder  in  a  combine  to  be 
poor  and  another  one  rich,  one  share  good  and  an- 
other one  bad,  and  it  was  also  impossible  for  any 
one  to  ever  become  an  American  citizen  and  not 
be  a  shareholder  in  a  Republic  of  shareholders,  a 
Republic  in  industry,  thus  logically  intelligently 
coupled  with  a  Republic  in  government. 

"Yes,  one  is  naturally  incomplete  without  the 
other,  and  a  marriage  was  foreshadowed  by  that 
'whatsoever  ye  would'  law  of  the  Christ  and  of 
American  civilization. 

"I  said,  'Theoretically  it  was  clear  before,  but 
your  question  makes  it  practically  clear.  Excuse 
me,  am  I  detaining  you,  Mrs.  Lazarus'?' 

"Not  at  all  if  it  is  pleasant  for  you  to  sit  with 
us  around  the  breakfast  table  in  'this  informal 
way;  it  is  popular  with  us.  Americans  have 
leisure  now  and  you  will  find  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes'  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  in 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  141 

almost  every  family  library,  and  my  family  here 
are  willing  subjects  of  such  an  autocracy,  and  we 
will  be  delighted  to  hear  you  ask  questions  con- 
cerning our  Combine  Age,  for  it  has  not  been  our 
privilege  before  to  entertain  a  foreigner,  and  the 
children  sympathize  with  you  because  you  are  a 
foreigner,  and  they  are  trying  to  discover  for 
themselves  the  actual  difference  between  foreign- 
ers and  Americans.  They  wanted  to  know  if  it 
was  proper  for  them  to  greet  you  with  our  up-to- 
date  greeting  which  they  did  when  you  came  in 
—Trust  me.' 

"I  said  that  I  scarcely  comprehended  it  as  I 
had  heard  it  everywhere,  on  the  streets  and  in  the 
car,  to  the  apparent  exclusion  of  all  other  social 
salutations,  until  I  looked  into  their  bright  young 
eyes  this  morning,  and  the  full  force  of  the  Trust 
me'  flashed  into  my  mind  and  heart  and  I  thought, 
'If  this  is  the  confidence  that  Combine  has  brought 
to  Americans,  I  will  retake  at  once  my  old  name 
that  I  was  known  by  before  I  went  to  live  in 
England,  and  you  may  all  call  me  hereafter  'Sys- 
tem.5 " 

"That  is  a  good  name,"  said  Mr.  Lazarus,  "if 
I  may  ask,  why  did  you  change  it*?" 


142  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"I  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  changed  it; 
others  changed  it  for  me.  To  be  sure,  I  proudly 
assented  to  it.  I  made  it  my  business,  you  see, 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  to  talk  and  preach 
reform,  that  they  nicknamed  me  'Reform,'  and  it 
stuck.  Then  again,  'System'  had  become  very 
unpopular,  almost  disreputable  in  America  before 
I  left.  System  was  a  good  name  in  itself,  but  it 
was  of  Wall  street  origin,  a  word  used  by  those 
who  were  said  to  coin  spurious  money,  to  produce 
schemes  dark  and  dangerous,  'high  finance'  hence 
was  rejected  by  the  masses  for  the  like  reasons  that 
they  rejected  aristocracy,  plutocracy,  trust,  com- 
bine. System  was  unpopular  and  Reform  was 
very  popular;  everybody  talked  reform,  (nobody 
practiced  it)  so,  finally,  I  dropped  into  the  snare 
and  called  myself  'Reform.' 

"I  sympathize  with  you;  Reform  is  a  good 
word  even  yet,  in  its  place,  but  it  does  not  apply 
in  industry,  with  which  it  is  and  has  been  formerly 
associated,  at  all;  it  has  proved  a  delusion  and  a 
snare.  I  commend  your  discretion  in  retaking 
your  real  name;  a  name  now  the  most  popular  and 
significant  word  in  the  American  language,  as 
everything  pertaining  to  production  and  distri- 
bution is  reduced  to  a  business  system  of,  for  and 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  143 

by  all  the  people,  so  that  now  all  the  long  words 
are  left  off  and  when  anyone  says  the  'System,' 
we  understand  it  all.  It  is  the  method  in  Com- 
bine." 

"I  have  discovered  that  this  is  somehow  true, 
but  the  exact  'modus  operandi'  has  not  yet  been 
explained  to  me.  Where  do  I,  a  foreigner,  com- 
mence? I  have  the  money  to  pay  for  my  board 
and  room  and  had  the  money  to  pay  for  my  car 
ride  last  night,  but  I  could  find  no  one  to  give  it 
to." 

"Ha!  ha!  You  took  a  ride  on  the  'Owl,'  did 
you?  Well  no  one  suspects  nowadays  that 
another  is  beating  his  way.  We  have  no  tramps. 
We  all  are  able  to  pay  our  own  way  now  and  go 
when  and  where  we  please.  It  was  supposed  that 
you  were  an  American,  either  native  or  foreign 
born,  and  by  virtue  of  that  you  were  a  shareholder 
in  the  industrial  combine  and  so  of  course,  had 
your  memorandum  card  like  this,  on  which  you 
can  keep  your  own  tally.  As  you  are  now  my 
guest,  I  keep  the  proper  tally  on  my  memoran- 
dum, which  we  turn  into  the  financial  secretary 
every  month." 

"But  what  about  my  board?" 


144  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"The  Combine  has  already  been  credited  with 
that." 

"Then  I  pay  you." 

"Not  at  all;  pay  the  Combine,  if  any  one. 
Guests  are  not  supposed  to  pay,  are  they,  but  the 
Combine,  not  I,  feeds  you.  There  is  a  way  for 
foreigners  to  pay,  but  we  are  glad  to  entertain  you 
socially  and  until  you  are  fully  convinced  of  the 
rectitude  of  the  American  Combine  and  volun- 
tarily choose  to  try  to  get  naturalization  papers. 
If  you  succeed,  you  get  then  a  memorandum  card 
of  your  own." 

"I  must  be  shown,  at  your  earliest  convenience, 
where  and  to  whom  to  make  my  application.  I 
have  caught  your  spirit,  and  I,  like  you,  insist  on 
paying  my  way." 

"I  will  be  pleased  to  introduce  you  to  the  offi- 
cers, and  also  to  the  banker  and  financial  secre- 
tary, but  wait  until  you  are  fully  convinced  that 
you  want  to  become  an  American  citizen." 

"Excuse  me,  am  I  to  understand  that  this  mem- 
orandum card  amounts  to  a  bank  book?" 

"Yes,  sir;  practically;  to  be  sure  your  monthly 
dividends  are  handed  to  you  in  gold,  silver  or 
paper  as  you  may  wish.  Almost  all  the  small 
transactions  like  buying  vegetables,  meat,  milk, 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  145 

etc.,  are  paid  for  with  gold,  silver,  or  nickel;  as 
formerly,  these  still  are  found  to  be  the  most  con- 
venient medium  of  exchange.  You  enter  the  gross 
amounts  on  your  card.  There  are  a  few  excep- 
tions, and  car  fare  is  one  of  them.  You  will  find 
business  customs  are  much  the  same  as  they  were 
under  competition,  such  usages,  at  least,  that  com- 
mend themselves  as  being  convenient,  harmless 
and  fair  to  all  alike;  we  have  not  changed,  only 
the  motive  is  changed  from  competition  to  com- 
bination, and  such  changes  as  were  made  neces- 
sary by  this  change  of  motive.  The  motive  is 
everything;  not  competition  reformed,  but  it  is 
just  the  opposite  of  what  it  was  under  the  selfish- 
ness of  competition.  The  simple  industrial  evo- 
lution that  had  been  going  on  for  nineteen  hun- 
dred years  culminating  in  the  industrial  self-inter- 
est of  the  Combine;  the  concern  of  one  actually 
becoming  not  only  recognized  as  the  concern  of 
all,  but  an  actual  recognition  of  the  fact,  a  say- 
ing, 'I  pronounce  you  man  and  wife' ;  the  parties 
thereto  believing  it,  and  acting  on  that  belief." 

"A  benefit  coming  to  my  husband,"  Mrs.  Laz- 
arus added,  "naturally  comes  to  me  and  our  fam- 
ily here;  Americans  are  all  one  in  financial  inter- 


146  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"What  one  change  do  you  estimate  to  be  the 
greatest  brought  by  the  Combine  of  all  the  peo- 
ple?" I  inquired  of  Mrs.  Lazarus. 

"Certainly  the  glad  spirit  in  which  all  the  peo- 
ple plan  for  one  another,  and  work  to  their  plans. 
Each  one  has  now  a  motive  for  helpfulness,  and 
also  the  peculiar  sensation  of  a  proprietor;  a  feel- 
ing that  he  is  actually  working  for  himself  in 
helping  another,  that  he  will  surely  get  what  he 
produces.  Wages,  high  or  low,  became  more  and 
more  intolerable,  like  an  inevitable  doom  that 
hung  over  the  people,  crushing  out  all  spirit  and 
gaiety  of  mind,  a  hireling  feeling  of  abject  slavery 
that  was  either  carrying  us  back  toward  barbarism 
or  hindering  the  onward  march  of  Christian  civil- 
ization, nothing  less  than  dividends  is  American." 

"True,  Mrs.  Lazarus,  distressingly  true!  I 
thought  to  escape  this  impending  doom  by  going 
to  England,  but  found  for  a  man,  American  raised 
and  imbued  with  its  peculiar  liberty-loving  spirit, 
that  England  offered  nothing  better,  only  this  dif- 
ference, the  American  raised,  somehow  felt  that 
in  a  Republic  we  could  do  better  than  work  for 
wages  if  we  would,  while  an  Englishman  felt  that 
he  was  living  in  a  monarchy  and  so  could  not  help 
himself." 


All  carpenters  are  themselves  proprietors.  Self  interest  is  on  the  side  of  clean 
"honest  buildings."  Its  in  the  geuius  of  the  Combine  idea  to  put  forward 
the  most  competent  to  manage  in  every  department,  hence  the  most  com- 
petent builders  will  naturally  be  the  foremen  in  the  Combine  age, 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  147 

"True,  we  American  knew  all  along  we  could 
help  ourselves  and  tried  this,  that  and  the  other 
reform  measures  to  do  it,  but  all  in  vain  until  one 
day  it  dawned  upon  us,  and  we  said  musingly: 
Why  yes,  we  are  all  every  one  Americans,  that 
is  a  fact.  Strange  we  had  not  thought  of  it  be- 
fore. I  want  to  tell  you  Mr.  System  that  the 
taking  hold  of  this  one  fact  that  we  are  all  actu- 
ally Americans,  and  all  that  it  carried  with  it, 
brought  every  change  that  you  see  around  you, 
as  a  natural  result.  'Like  getting  the  husband,' 
said  Mrs.  Lazarus,  'we  get  his  property,  don't 
we? 

"And,"  retorted  Mr.  Lazarus,  "like  getting  a 
wife,  we  get  all  that  she  has.  Financial  results  in 
marriage  and  combine  are  much  the  same." 

"I  see  the  aptness  of  your  figure  of  speech,  but 
tell  me  a  little  more  about  wages.  This  wage 
matter  is  interesting." 

"It  goes  without  saying  that  everyone  intui- 
tively wants  to  feel  himself  or  herself  a  proprietor. 
Competition  kept  crowding  out  the  smaller  pro- 
prietors, weaker  ones  being  defeated  continually, 
more  and  more  of  them  toppled  down  to  wages. 
Department  stores  crushed,  as  they  easily  could, 
all  smaller  competitors,  and  with  humiliation, 


148  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

hundreds  of  former  proprietors  went  to  work  for 
them  as  clerks  for  wages.  Our  ideal,  our  longing 
desire  to  become  proprietors  was  going,  going, 
gone;  and  wage  slavery  was  all  that  was  left  us. 
Then  silly  labor,  instead  of  calling  to  mind  that 
fact :  that  we  were  Americans — took  another  fool- 
ish stand  on  the  Rate  of  wages,  little  heeding  the 
plain  fact  that  the  same  force  that  had  reduced 
them  down  to  wages  could  and  would,  in  an  in- 
credibly short  time,  take  away  the  rate  of  wages 
and  thus  defeat  every  Union  in  the  land.  Ex- 
perience is  a  dear  school  master,  but  fools  would 
learn  of  no  other,  so  it  seemed." 

"After  proprietorship  was  knocked  out,  and 
the  rate  of  wages  was  knocked  out,  hope  gone,  like 
the  prodigal,  we  came  to  ourselves  and  remem- 
bered that  we  had  a  father — America  and  that 
we  were  Americans,  and  that  our  father  America 
had  already  provided  us  the  Corporation  Act,  and 
we  woke  up,  in  amazement!  and  when  our  eyes 
were  wide  open,  we  discovered  that  combine  was 
succeeding  and  why4?  Not  because  he  was  moral, 
religious  or  belonged  to  my  political  party  but  be- 
cause he  was  making  use  of  that  identical  Corpora- 
tion Idea,  and  more,  amazement  became  amazed, 
when  we  traced  back  and  found  that  our  fathers 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  149 

had  been  inspired  by  the  author  of  the  'whatso- 
ever ye  would'  law  when  they  enacted  that  Cor- 
poration law.  These  discoveries  made  our  way 
plain,  and  as  easy  as  it  was  plain,  and  as  imme- 
diate as  it  was  plain  and  easy.  Some  now  like  to 
believe  that  somebody  had  been  talking  to  God 
about  it,  as  Washington  did  at  Valley  Forge,  and 
as  Lincoln  did  in  the  darkest  hour  of  the  great 
Rebellion.  Surely  man's  extremity  was  God's 
opportunity.  Thus  wages  went  and  dividends 
came;  dividends,  the  medium  of  distribution,  a 
medium  that,  logically  speaking,  could  not  recog- 
nize partiality,  or  any  special  privilege,  an  intent 
that  the  wage  idea  always  carried  with  it,  that  is, 
the  privilege  of  being  a  boasting,  bigotted  employ- 
er of  a  menial  servant  for  wages.  Now,  sir,  it  is 
beneath  the  dignity  of  an  American,  even  a  Laza- 
rus, to  work  for  wages,  either  high  or  low." 

"The  consolidation,  the  merging  of  railroads 
and  capital,  generally,  taught  all  of  us,  and  served 
as  an  object  lesson,  to  show  how  naturally  easy  for 
all  Americans  to  incorporate,  to  unite  in  one  cor- 
poration and  thus  legally  connect  the  American 
in  his  industrial  capacity  with  the  American  in 
his  political  capacity.  Thus  every  American  be- 
came a  proprietor  and  as  you  go  out  among  our 


150  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

people  today,  you  will  see  the  marked  contrast 
between  the  dispirited  driveling  of  ten  years  ago, 
in  every  face  and  feature,  revealing  the  spirit  of 
the  proprietor  that  smiles  back,  aye,  enthuses  our 
people  up  to  their  very  best  industrial  endeavor, 
not  compulsory,  but  spontaneous;  and  in  the 
cleanness  of  our  politics,  now  that  all  men  get 
their  living  direct  from  industry,  clean  statesmen 
find  in  politics  their  niche,  and  men  working  poli- 
tics for  a  living  is  a  thing  of  the  past;  these  men 
are  getting  a  better  living  in  a  better  way,  for  of 
all  men,  the  professional  politician  then,  had  a 
hard  road  to  travel." 

"That  reminds  me  that  I  have  not  noticed  any 
saloons  which  were  common  ten  years  ago." 

"I  do  not  wonder  that  the  mere  mention  of 
politician  reminded  you  of  the  saloon;  it  was  al- 
most a  necessity  to  him.  I  rejoice  that  this  drunk- 
ard-maker was  closed  by  Combine,  purely  for 
financial  reasons  and  there  is  not  one  saloon  in  all 
America — listen — and  that  for  want  of  a  willing 
keeper.  You  see,  the  business  interest  of  one  in 
the  Combine,  is  the  business  interest  of  all  in 
the  Combine,  and  as  all  Americans  are  in  the 
Combine,  every  shareholder  knows  that  drunken- 
ness incapacitates,  and  anything  that  inca- 


LIFE  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  151 

pacitates  the  workman  himself,  or  deflects 
the  time  of  another  workman  to  take  care 
of  him,  is  clearly  against  the  financial  interest  of 
the  Combine;  a  man  did  not  have  to  be  religious 
or  a  prohibitionist  to  see  this  point.  This  is  a 
glimpse  of  the  beautiful  industrialism  of  this 
Combine  Age,  in  which  there  can  be  logically  no 
such  thing  as  special  privileges,  wage,  employee, 
hireling,  that  is,  gradations  in  industry,  any  more 
than  there  can  be  that  unthinkable  thing  of  gra- 
dations in  citizenship.  If  gradations  were  think- 
able in  either  industry  or  citizenship  our  very  hu- 
manity would  humanely  drive  us  to  think  of  the 
weaker  ones  physically,  first.  Reform  old  Compe- 
tition*? No,  never;  quit  competing,  go  away 
from  it,  discard  it,  say  to  it,  'Get  you  be- 
hind me  Satan.'  To  set  our  face  in  the  op- 
posite direction.  Combine  was  the  only  course 
to  take.  This,  Mr.  System,  was  the  second 
American  Revolution  and  greater  than  the 
first,  greater  in  that  it  was  greater  to  produce  and 
fairly  distribute  than  it  was  to  produce  only; 
greater  to  co-operate  in  production,  that  produced  a 
living  for  all,  and  to  fairly  distribute  that  living  to 
all,  than  it  is  to  glorify  the  American  eagle  or  deify 
the  Goddess  of  Liberty,  especially  when  neither 


152  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

the  bird  or  the  idol  are  in  the  slightest  danger  of 
being  either  shot  or  disgraced.  A  written  consti- 
tution was  and  is  a  necessary  center  for  govern- 
ment, just  as  the  Combine  is  become  a  necessary 
center  of  industry.  Logically,  if  the  government 
is  a  Republic  then  industry  must  need  be  a  Re- 
public. America  had,  up  to  ten  years  ago, 
tried  to  preserve  a  Republican  form  of  gov- 
ernment and  a  monarchial  form  of  industry,  and 
strikes  and  corrupt  politics  were  the  inevitable 
result." 


CHAPTER  IX 

SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE 

"Does  not  the  skilled  laborer  somehow  reflect 
that  he  does  more  than  his  share,  or  the  unskilled 
feel  offended  at  discrimination'?" 

"No,  there  is  no  discrimination,  Mr.  System, 
our  happy  people  are  as  contented  with  the  re- 
public in  industry  as  they  are  and  have  been  with 
the  republic  in  government,  and  there  is  no  dis- 
crimination in  citizenship,  is  there  2  They  know 
that  they  are  not  discriminated  against  in  indus- 
try; that  all  men  who  do  their  best,  are  en- 
titled to  have  all  returning  wants  supplied,  be- 
cause the  employment  that  he  or  she  is  best  fitted 
for,  naturally,  and  educated  to  fill,  properly,  is  in 
no  sense  a  discrimination,  for  or  against.  Every 
American  is  now  entitled  to  dividends,  not  be- 
cause he  is  skilled  or  unskilled,  professional  or 
not  professional;  he  is  entitled  to  dividends,  I 
love  to  repeat,  because  he  is  a  man.  Every  man 

153 


154  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

really  wants  to  find  his  niche,  and  the  Combine 
wants  him  to  find  it,  i.  e.,  just  where  he  can  be 
of  the  greatest  financial  profit  to  the  Combine, 
that  is,  to  himself  as  a  shareholder.  We  have 
always  been  and  are  actuated  by  a  sense  of  loyalty 
to  government;  we  are  actuated  in  the  Combine 
by  the  same  actual  self-interest,  which  is  the  sum 
of  all  interests." 

"Political  reform  was  only  a  sentiment,  and  so 
had  no  standing  when  it  came  to  settling  either 
the  labor  or  the  liquor  question,  both  of  which 
were  clearly  business  matters,  hence  these  had  to 
be  settled  by  purely  business  methods,  and  Com- 
bine is  but  an  up-to-date  name  for  business;  a 
business  systematized  and  intended  to  help  all 
the  people.  The  moment  that  we  were  awake  and 
realized  the  fact  that  we  were  all  Americans,  alike 
competent,  intelligent,  calculating  men,  whether 
rich  or  poor,  we  placed  every  industrial  matter  on 
a  commercial  basis  and  asked  ourselves  the  ques- 
tion, 'will  this  or  that  pay?'  and  when  answered 
in  the  affirmative,  our  close  Corporation,  Combine 
as  we  now  have  it,  was  the  logical  result.  Now 
we  naturally  place  our  confidence  in  dividends, 
Combine's  method  of  distribution.  The  wonder 
is,  Mr.  System,  that  we  ever  dared  bring  children 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  155 

into  the  world  to  live  on  wages  which  was  but 
another  name  for  charity,  and  charity  is  begging, 
and  asking  the  lion,  the  hog,  the  brute  in  men, 
for  the  meek  privilege  to  live  just  one  more  day. 
A  beggar  usually  brought  out  the  parsimony  of  the 
almoner.  Every  almoner  inwardly  wished  that 
the  object  of  his  charity  were  dead.  After  all,  it 
is  a  bit  inhuman  to  leave  the  impression  on  a  con- 
servative man's  mind  that  because  he  was  a  little 
man,  physically  or  mentally,  perhaps  both,  that 
he  was  in  debt  to  another  big  American  for  his 
keep;  that  he  owed  some  big  man  physically,  or 
big  man  financially,  for  board  and  clothes,  and 
died  in  debt.  'Not  much !'  If  a  man  is  big  men- 
tally or  physically  and  does  not  do  his  best  with 
his  great  abilities,  he  ought  to  be  punished 
for  not  doing  his  best,  rather  than  given 
some  special  privilege  as  a  reward  for  do- 
ing his  best.  Is  not  that  the  proper  ethical 
standing?  That  is  what  America  stands  for  po- 
litically, and  always  has.  Every  man  is  expected 
to  be  a  loyal  citizen.  If  we  had  read  'equality' 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  aright,  we 
would  long  ago  have  understood  it  to  mean  indus- 
trial equality.  That  is  what  that  flag  up  there 


156  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

means  to  us  now.  Equality  was  a  vague,  unmean- 
ing word  when  one  man  had  it  all." 

"Trusts  used  to  grow  fat  on  'special'  privi- 
leges." 

"Yes,  of  course;  but  we  ALL  eat  the  trust  food 
now  as  our  regular  diet,  so  does  not  the  privilege 
cease  to  be  a  special?  But  even  competing  trusts 
were  not  a  'sure  thing'  because  of  a  greater  com- 
petitor. Now,  in  America,  we  have  no  competi- 
tion among  ourselves.  All  competitors  are  on 
the  outside  of  America  and  that  does  not  concern 
us  very  much  for  our  volunteer  army  that  have 
a  reputation  for  shooting  straight,  are  standing 
guard  and  do  actually  keep  the  peace,  which  is 
comparatively  easy  to  do,  for  America  attends 
now  to  her  own  business;  that  is,  does  not  meddle 
in  outside  affairs.  Combine  does  not  want  any 
fighting  because  it  does  not  pay  to  sustain  armies 
and  navies.  We  all  own  property  now,  all  the 
people  foot  the  bills,  so  all  the  army  has  to  do  is 
to  simply  to  say  'Hands  off !  let  Americans  alone !' 
which  means  that  all  industrial  America  is  be- 
hind that  'Hands  off.'  So  America  never  expects 
another  war.  We  are  a  Combine  of  soldiers;  we 
are  one,  in  all  our  interests  and  there  is  not  a 
nation  but  knows  that  we  would  fight  for  America 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  157 

as  we  would  for  a  mother.  It  is  all  in  the  family ! 
It  is  home!  Our  home!  Hands  off!" 

"Surely  you  still  pay  your  soldiers  wages?" 

"By  no  manner  of  means.  Are  they  not  Ameri- 
cans? Are  not  all  Americans  shareholders  and 
entitled  to  dividends?  Wages  never  were  a  suf- 
ficient incentive  to  a  soldier;  honor,  patriotism, 
loyalty,  glory,  adventure,  etc.,  go  to  make  up  an 
inducement  and  always  will. 

"As  to  rank  in  the  Combine,  the  intelligence, 
fitness,  adaptation,  of  the  shareholder  fixes  his 
rank  in  each  and  every  instance;  government  es- 
teems every  man  equally,  so  does  Combine.  The 
hope  of  rising  stimulates  some,  devotion  to  duty, 
others,  but  stimulants  and  tonics  all  fade  into  in- 
significance in  the  presence  of  something  to  eat, 
nourishment,  self-preservation.  This  is  the  first 
law  of  nature." 

"Being  an  American  soldier  is  a  very  different 
matter  from  what  it  was  under  Competition. 
Soldiers  now  have  homes  and  families  like  all 
other  Americans.  They  do  not  'soldier,'  that  is, 
kill  time;  they  drill  to  become  efficient,  and  read- 
ily change  into  other  departments  as  soon  as  they 
have  learned  the  'manual  of  arms,'  so  that  all  our 
men  are  now  practically  ready  for  the  'field.'  But 


158  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

the  stability  of  America  is  her  ability  to  keep  the 
peace.  Hands  off  is  backed  by  the  Combine  be- 
hind it." 

"Sitting  around  your  breakfast  table  and  hear- 
ing you  tell  of  these  wonderful  changes  that  the 
Combine  Age  has  brought  with  it,  is  delightfully 
pleasant,  Mr.  Lazarus;  but,  Mrs.  Lazarus,  we 
must  give  the  servants  a  chance;  they  must  be 
hungry." 

"Ha!  Ha!  Mr.  System,  excuse  me  for  laugh- 
ing, but  let  me  remind  you  that  Americans  live 
in  homes  now,  and  the  servant  idea  as  you  seem 
to  understand  it  is  a  thing  of  the  past." 

"Do  you  do  your  own  work?" 

"Certainly;  if  I  fully  understand  your  question, 
we  all  do  our  own  work,  if  work  it  may  be  called. 
Your  name,  'system,'  comes  in  to  help  us  out. 
You  see,  each  of  us  know  what  we  can  do  best, 
and  naturally  turn  to  it  as  we  do  to  our  breakfast; 
we  do  not  wish  any  one  to  eat  our  breakfast  for 
us,  do  we?  We  can  do  it  to  our  own  satisfaction; 
no  one  else  can  do  it  just  to  our  liking.  We  have 
something  of  that  opinion  regarding  each  our  part 
of  taking  care  of  these  dishes,  and  of  each  other, 
etc.  We  are  all  willing  'domestics'  for  we  do 
just  what  we  are  adapted  to  doing  and  each  think 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  159 

we  can  do  that  better  than  any  one  else,  and  by 
each  actively  doing  our  part,  none  of  us  are  over- 
worked." 

"But  we  have  sat  longer  this  morning,  perhaps, 
and  so  have  broken  into  your  'system'." 

"Do  not  be  embarassed,  Mr.  System;  our  'sys- 
tem' will  bend  a  little;  for  example,  only  our 
time  for  recreation  has  been  very  properly  spent 
this  morning  and  just  now  brings  us  up  to  the 
school  hour  for  James  and  Elsie,  and  baby  seems 
ready  for  the  lullaby  of  her  mother." 

"And  I  will  take  the  liberty  to  turn  you  loose, 
Mr.  System,  in  our  family  library  again.  I  run  a 
lathe  in  the  factory  for  four  hours  and  it  will  be 
just  eight  by  the  time  I  get  there.  I  always  busy 
myself  about  'home'  afternoons,  arid  will  be  de- 
lighted to  show  you  around.  Trust  me." 

"How  could  I  help  replying,  'trust  me,'  turned 
loose,  no  lock  or  bolts  against  me;  go  anywhere; 
steal  anything  if  I  wanted  to  steal.  I  paced  up 
and  down  the  library  for  a  time.  I  felt  like  a 
tramp,  enjoying  this  splendid  hospitality  without 
doing  my  fair  share.  I  stepped  out  into  the  street- 
like  road  to  look  for  a  job.  Yet  what  could  I 
do4?  I  had  preached  reform  so  long  and  lived 
off  of  collections,  that  I  felt  as  though  I  was  not 


160  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

fit  to  run  anything  but  a  talking  machine,  and 
this  reform  variety  of  talking  machine  had  gone 
out  of  date.  As  I  walked  along,  I  came  to  an 
elderly  gentleman  who  kindly  said  'trust  me.'  'I 
will,'  I  said  laughing,  'I  want  a  job.  I  have  just 
landed  in  America;  I  have  some  money,  enough 
to  pay  my  way,  I  suppose,  but  nobody  seems  to 
care  for  it.'  " 

"Seeing  that  you  have  just  landed  you  must 
necessarily  be  assigned,  if  you  have  no  relatives 
or  old  friends  to  greet  you." 

"I  explained  to  him  that  I  was  a  guest  of  Mr. 
Lazarus." 

"In  that  case,"  said  he,  "Mr.  Lazarus  will  di- 
rect you  just  what  to  do." 

"I  took  the  hint  that  going  along  the  road  and 
asking  for  a  job  was  not  the  American  way  any 
more,  so  I  kept  my  eyes  open  but  said  nothing 
more  to  those  I  passed  about  a  job.  Soon  after 
twelve  o'clock  I  rounded  in,  weary  with  my  long 
walk  and  found  that  Mr.  Lazarus  had  returned 
home,  and  that  Mrs.  Lazarus,  who  had  dropped 
onto  a  secret  that  had  always  helped  to  keep  peace 
in  the  family,  had  dinner  ready.  The  conversa- 
tion turned  upon  her  burden  of  household  cares 
and  the  extra  care  that  I  was  giving  her,  etc." 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  161 

"Please  take  another  view,"  she  replied;  "look 
at  the  pleasure  it  gives  me  and  my  husband  and 
James  and  Elsie.  Even  baby  sits  more  quietly 
to  have  you  with  us.  I  can  wish  you  no  greater 
pleasure  than  to  have  a  home  and  family  of  your 
own,  and  this  unusual  privilege,  that  has  never 
come  to  us  before,  of  entertaining  a  foreigner,  as 
all  Americans  have  homes  of  their  own.  Then 
again,  the  actual  labor  of  the  home  is  nominal 
now.  Thanks  to  the  'system'  of  the  Combine,  our 
industrial  schools  prepare  much  of  our  food,  so 
that  mothers  have  little  to  do  but  to  select  and 
season  to  suit  the  peculiar  taste  of  her  family  and 
keep  close  watch  of  the  clock." 

"In  all  my  walking  I  have  not  noticed  a  hotel 
or  restaurant." 

"What  need.  Our  people  all  live  in  homes  of 
their  own." 

"But  suppose  I  had  not  met  you,  Mr.  Lazarus, 
what  would  I  have  done4?" 

"Let  me  assure  you  that  you  would  not  have 
gone  hungry  or  bedless;  I  proposed  to  assign  you 
if  you  remember." 

"Yes,  but  to  where?" 

"To  our  nearest  industrial  school,  to  be  sure, 
whose  business  it  is  to  care  for  strangers  or  any 


162  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

and  all  until  they  can  select  a  home  regularly." 

'Tree?' 

"No  and  yes.  They  never  mention  pay  any 
more  than  the  street  car  conductor.  You  would 
naturally  soon  learn  the  usual  rates,  and  volun- 
tarily hand  it  to  the  proper  clerk,  unless  you  had 
become  an  American  and  received  your  memoran- 
dum card;  then  you  keep  your  own  account,  or 
your  guardian  keeps  it  for  you." 

"What  am  I  to  understand  by  industrial 
school?" 

"Simply  schools  where  our  girls  are  all  taught 
to  be  expert  cooks,  housekeepers,  in  a  word,  compe- 
tent wives.  Our  industrial  schools  are  not  only 
adapted  to  teaching  our  young  men  and  women 
what  they  ought  to  know  industrially,  but  are 
fully  self-supporting,  and  the  accommodations  are 
as  luxurious  as  you  will  find  at  the  best  hotels 
of  England." 

"Do  all  guests  have  the  same  attention?" 

"Certainly;  why  not?" 

"Are  there  no  first,  second  and  third-class?" 

"What  need?  They  are  all  first-class;  that  is, 
the  best  they  know  how." 

"But  poor  people  like  myself  cannot  pay  first- 
class,  or  even  second-class  for  a  long  period  of 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  163 

"How  much  you  give  is  left  entirely  with  you. 
It  is  the  school's  only  function  to  treat  all  the  best 
they  can,  that  is,  as  you  say,  first-class.  To  be 
sure,  most  immigrants  have  friends  who  meet 
them  at  the  wharf  and  take  them  to  their  own 
homes  and  show  them  around  just  as  we  are  trying 
to  do  you." 


"If  I  understand  you,  your  four  hours'  shift 
was  all  that  was  found  necessary  per  day  in  the 
lathe  department  of  your  factory.  Does  that 
mean  that  you  have  the  remainder  of  the  twenty- 
four  hours  for  yourself?" 

"Yes,  sir;  rather  for  my  family,  and  you  are 
a  part  of  my  family  while  you  are  my  guest." 

"Thank  you;  then  can  you  show  me  around 
this  afternoon4?  I  want  to  make  application  for 
naturalization  papers  first  and  then  I  have  many 
other  points  to  ask  you  about." 

"Papa,  can't  we  go,  too?" 

"Mamma,  what  do  you  say  about  James  and 
Elsie  going  with  Mr.  System  and  me  to  the  court 
house*?" 

"I  say  it  is  all  right.  They  have  been  wanting 
to  go  for  some  time,  but  we  had  no  particular  busi- 


164  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

ness  over  there,  so  this  is  their  time,  if  it  will  be 
agreeable  to  you,  Mr.  System." 

"More  than  agreeable;  it  will  be  a  pleasure  to 
me.     They  may  ask  Mr.  Lazarus  some  questions 
that  I  would  be  ashamed  to  ask  him,  yet  to  which 
I  would  like  to  know  the  answers." 
###*##### 

"Do  not  lose  sight  of  your  sister,  James;  and 
Elsie,  remember  that  chatterbox  I  was  reading  to 
you  about.  Mr.  System,  I  appoint  you  and  Mr. 
Lazarus  a  special  committee  of  safety." 

"Ha!  Ha!  you  had  better  add  the  police  force 
to  that  committee.  That  reminds  me  that  I  have 
not  seen  a  policeman  since  I  left  the  wharf." 

"What  need?    But  we  will  talk  of  that  on  the 


"You  observed,  Mr.  System,  that  you  had  not 
seen  a  policeman.  We  do  have  a  few;  not  one  to 
twenty  of  ten  years  ago.  The  reason  is  one — 
self-interest — but  the  manifestations  are  many. 
It  is  now  to  no  one's  self-interest  financially  to 
make  or  sell  liquor,  so  we  have  no  drunkenness. 
Sober  men  are  not  turbulent.  Then  we  have  no 
litigation  over  property;  all  productive  property 
is  now  safe  from  quarrel,  that  is,  all  has  been 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  165 

placed  voluntarily  in  Combine  and  birds  of  the 
same  species  never  quarrel  over  their  homes,  do 
they?  They  are  built  each  after  our  own  fancy. 
No  one  wants  our  home  here,  because  each  has  a 
home  that  suits  better.  Men  now  live  with  their 
families  instead  of  in  lodging  houses  and  restau- 
rants. Nearly  all  men  are  married  at  marriage- 
able age  and  their  associations  are  with  wives  and 
mothers,  a  society  in  which  there  is  little  or  no 
quarreling.  Men  see  now  that  there  is  an  inten- 
tion to  be  fair ;  among  Americans  this  would  com- 
pletely disarm  both  parties  to  any  quarrel.  Last 
but  not  least,  when  men  feel  relieved  from  worry 
over  their  daily  bread,  as  Combine  does  so  effect- 
ually relieve  (no  fear  of  poverty,  have  plenty  to 
eat  and  wear)  fret  and  worry  are  gone.  We  have 
full  reliance  in  the  sufficiency  of  cooperative  pro- 
duction, and  the  systematic  and  equitable  distri- 
bution of  all  that  is  produced,  these,  together  with 
the  confidence  that  every  American  has  in  the  con- 
tinuation of  the  Combine  Age,  reduces  the  police 
force  to  a  minimum.  The  little  strife  that  we 
do  have,  is  usually  from  a  misunderstanding  of 
the  language  of  different  nationalities,  taking  in- 
sult where  none  was  intended,  or  jealousies  over 
or  about  mates,  and  as  there  is  no  prestige  in 


166  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

marrying  rich  as  there  used  to  be,  even  this  class 
of  disputes  is  fading  away.  If  the  Combine  fur- 
nishes home  and  abundance  to  every  young 
couple  at  marriageable  age,  it  is  not  worth  while 
to  fight  over  a  superabundance,  is  it1?  Then  the 
economy  of  Combine,  our  own  intuition,  puts 
every  available  man  by  his  own  volition,  at  what 
he  can  earn  the  most  for  the  Combine,  that  is, 
for  himself,  so  just  enough  policemen,  are  just 
enough.  It  doesn't  pay  to  have  more. 

"Then,  again,  the  Board  of  Health  are  able 
to  show  that  a  fit  of  anger  is  unprofitable,  as  ex- 
hausting to  the  vital  powers  as  a  day's  work.  That 
nerve  matter  exhausted  in  the  moments  that  a 
man  is  mad  enough  to  fight  is  about  equalled  by 
the  poison  of  alcohol  that  would  keep  him  drunk 
all  day;  it  don't  pay  the  Combine  for  men  to  get 
mad  or  drunk,  so  now  that  Combine  has  placed 
everything  pertaining  to  making  a  living  on  a 
financial  basis,  the  police  have  lost  their  jobs  and 
taken  to  some  other  far  more  agreeable  to  them 
and  profitable  to  the  Combine. 

"A  common  business  interest  is  even  more  ef- 
ficient than  even  being  placed  on  honor.  Combine 
uses  both  to  their  full.  It  is  surprising  what  help- 
ful things  men  will  think  out  when  it  is  to  their 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  167 

financial  interest  to  help,  to  combine,  and  as 
shareholders,  think,  work  with,  rather  than 
against,  each  other,  and  how  suddenly  the  motive 
changes  when  placed  'in  interest,'  that  is,  com- 
bined together  in  the  interest  of  all.  Motive! 

Motive !    Motive ! 
^******** 

"Well,  here  we  are,  in  sight  of  the  courthouse. 
Now,  Mr.  System,  one  of  the  questions  you  will 
be  asked  today  is  to  give  your  first,  second  and 
third  choice  of  an  occupation,  that  is,  what  you 
would  rather  do  than  anything  else.  A  man  will 
usually  earn  more  money  for  Combine  (himself) 
doing  what  he  feels  he  is  best  adapted  to  doing. 
You  will  be  shown  a  long  list  of  occupations; 
some  mechanical,  some  professional,  some  scien- 
tific, some  literary,  some  horticultural,  some  agri- 
cultural, etc." 

"Must  I  select  permanently  today?" 

"Oh  no;  not  permanently,  only  the  officials  do 
not  wish  to  list  a  saddle  horse  for  the  plow.  Do- 
ing what  you  can,  most  surely  and  agreeably  to 
yourself,  that  is,  to  make  a  clean  living  for  your- 
self, answers  the  question." 

"I  was  a  landscape  gardener  before  I  went  to 
England,  but  the  people  became  so  greedy  for 


168  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

mammoth  bank  accounts  that  there  was  next  to 
nothing  doing  in  my  line." 

"Beautifying  the  landscape  is  now  one  of  the 
leading  employments  of  the  Combine.  The  true 
first,  then  the  beautiful,  then  the  good,  is  now  the 
order.  Thoughtfully,  it  is  easier  to  be  good  if  we 

have  home  and  plenty." 
%*^***3i^$i 

"Well,  you  have  passed,  and  got  your  first 
papers,  and  we  are  on  our  way  home  again.  The 
landscape  board  of  each  school  district,  Mr.  Sys- 
tem, meets  every  Monday  afternoon  at  3  o'clock 
at  the  close  of  the  school,  to  block  out  work  for 
the  week.  The  cottagers  meet  with  them,  that 
they  may  act  in  concert  in  the  beautifying  of  their 
own  homes.  You  listed  as  a  landscape  gardener 
as  first  choice ;  if  efficient,  you  will  be  in  a  popular 
department.  The  hours  are  more  in  number  than 
in  some  other  employments  that  require  more  in- 
tense application.  Six  hours,  I  believe,  four  in 
the  forenoon,  and  two  in  the  afternoon.  Many 
factories  are  run  the  whole  twenty- four  hours,  but 
in  relays  of  four  hours  each.  General  farming 
is  still  the  most  popular  employment,  notwith- 
standing the  hours  are  double,  four  in  the  fore- 
noon and  four  in  the  afternoon,  except  Monday 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  169 

it  is  only  two  in  the  afternoon.  Sunday,  of 
course,  is  still  Bible  day,  and  nobody  pretends  to 
do  anything  more  than  care  for  their  stock  and 
run  excursion  trains  to  pleasure  grounds,  church, 
etc.  It  is  given  to  rest  and  recreation." 

"It  has  been  in  my  mind  to  ask  you  what  Com- 
bine management  has  done  with  theatres.  Some 
of  them  were  vile  resorts,  little  better  than  dis- 
reputable dance  halls  ten  years  ago." 

"I  will  go  over  that  ground  with  you  after  sup- 
per." 
********* 

"In  placing  everything  on  the  basis  'will  it 
pay?'  many  of  the  theatres  collapsed  as  suddenly 
as  did  the  dance  halls  and  houses  of  prostitution 
of  which  they  were  the  feeders.  They  had  flour- 
ished on  account  of  their  vileness,  under  Compe- 
tition, especially  as  money-making  schemes,  but 
the  moment  Combine  waked  the  people  up,  their 
open  eyes  fell  on  the  unprofitableness  of  impurity 
and  they  universally  agreed  that  it  did  not  'pay,' 
that  no  one  was  quite  the  profit  to  the  Combine, 
that  is,  to  himself,  that  he  would  be  if  he  were 
pure.  Hence,  any  and  everything  that  actually 
led  or  had  a  tendency  to  lead  into  impurity  was 
immediately  discontinued,  and  every  inducement 


170  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

to  virtue  was  encouraged  by  the  Board  of  Health. 
While  it  was  a  fundamental  law  that  young  men 
and  women  must  wait  until  mature  before  they 
married,  all  knew  that  wealth  or  the  want  of  a 
home  would  not  bar  them  from  wedlock ;  all  knew 
that  they  could  marry  as  soon  as  mature.  This 
in  itself  was  some  restraint.  Also  the  realization 
that  they  were  Americans  and  as  shareholders  in 
the  Combine,  each  was  individually  interested 
financially,  not  only  in  his  own  health,  but  the 
health  of  the  future  generation,  helped.  You  may 
smile  at  the  feebleness  of  these  barriers,  but  really, 
'will  it  pay'  in  dollars  and  cents  has  had  the  effect 
that  sentiment,  however  pious,  failed  to  inspire. 
Consistency  is  said  to  be  a  jewel.  Certain  it  is  that 
industrial  inconsistency  of  church  and  people 
prevented  revival  and  competitive  practices  de- 
stroyed religious  experience  immediately.  No 
man  becoming  a  Christian  could  do  business  an 
hour  competitively  and  retain  full  Christian  in- 
tegrity. Christ  laid  down  a  reasonable  principle, 
'Do  as  you  would  be  done  by,'  which  competition 
ignored  or  tried  to  evade  or  apologize  for,  until 
cornered  by  the  American  Combine,  which  con- 
vinced the  American  people  who  had  already 
obeyed  this  law  only  in  regard  to  citizenship,  that 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  171 

they  needed  to  go  only  a  little  further  and 
adopt  the  same  Combine  Idea  in  industry  to  com- 
pletely obey  His  'as  ye  would'  law.  We  see  now 
that  the  labor  question  never  could  have  been 
settled,  only  by  compliance  to  this  law,  and  obe- 
dience to  that  law  must  have  logically  settled  it 
and  at  once.  So  it  did  not  require  reform  or  evo- 
lution or  a  bloody  revolution  or  even  a  com- 
promise (you  give  up  so  much  and  I  will  give  in 
so  much)  disgustingly  humiliating  to  everybody, 
but  rather  a  brand  new  Combine,  rivals  becoming 
glad  allies,  a  literal  'doing  as  each  would  be  done 
by,'  all  becoming  alike  active  shareholders  in  one 
Americanized  Combine,  with  no  more  mental  res- 
ervation than  had  hitherto  existed  in  citizenship. 
This  did  settle,  not  only  the  labor  question,  but 
solved  the  whole  industrial  problem.  We  ought 
to  have  known — aye,  we  did  know  that  the  very 
suspicion  of  industrial  inequality  was  as  fatal  to 
industry  as  inequality  in  citizenship  would  have 
been.  Taught  by  the  familiar  object  lesson,  seen 
in  every  combine,  five  men  whose  hearts  beat  as 
one  financially,  then  five  thousand  shareholders. 
We  said,  'Why  not  five  million?  Why  not  all 
the  people?'  No  sooner  asked  than  answered  by 
all  the  people  becoming  loyal  industrial  allies  as 


172  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

well  as  loyal  American  citizens.  So  the  demands 
of  Combine,  among  other  things,  are  that  the 
theatres  must  be  of  such  a  character  that  the  en- 
tire family  may  profitably  attend,  which  means 
much  to  morals  and  religion  as  well  as  health." 

"Does  not  this  high  character  displease  the 
young  people?" 

"No,  on  the  contrary,  social  enjoyment  was 
never  equal  under  competition  to  what  it  is  today 
under  Combine.  It  is  delightful,  especially  to  the 
young  people,  to  find  that  society  has  really  got 
to  where  it  systematically  cares  for  the  young,  the 
people  as  a  whole,  enough  to  provide  suitable 
theatres  to  enjoy  with  them,  as  religiously  as  it 
provides  churches.  The  Board  of  Health,  medical 
men  wise  in  what  is  required  by  the  child  yet  un- 
born, and  at  every  epoch  all  along  up  until  it 
ripens  into  old  age,  knows  just  what  and  how 
much  levity,  enjoyment,  and  fun  goes  to  make  up 
a  life  fully  rounded  out,  producing  the  best  phy- 
sical and  most  profitable  manhood  and  woman- 
hood. 

"Mr.  System,  to  enjoy  this  life  and  a  home 
here,  conduces  to  a  preparation  for  a  Heaven 
hereafter.  The  Combine  theatres  help  to  fill  the 
Combine  churches.  They  'pay'  both  for  time  and 


SOCIETY  IN  THE  COMBINE  AGE  173 

eternity.  They  are  departments  of  the  larger 
American  homes.  Ah,  Mr.  System,  God  did  not 
create  men  just  to  have  somebody  to  punish  as 
man-made  competition  punished  them.  His  Son 
was  such  a  man  as  turned  water  into  such  wine, 
that  children  and  women,  even  His  mother,  could 
drink  without  physical  injury.  His  was  a  mission 
of  salvation,  to  be  sure,  but  He  did  not  come  to 
prohibit  a  proper  love,  or  even  fret  it,  by  arti- 
ficial barriers;  these  barriers  have  been  created  by 
men,  by  building  up  differences  of  station,  of 
wealth,  of  rank,  etc.  The  Board  of  Health  en- 
gages to  put  a  theatre  or  a  church  where  the  health 
and  happiness  of  the  community  require  it,  and 
that  distinctly  in  answer  to  the  question,  'Will  it 
pay*?5  Our  people  do  not  get  too  old  or  too  re- 
ligious to  enjoy  our  up-to-date  theatres,  or  too  in- 
different about  the  home  beyond  not  to  attend 
church  to  hear  what  may  be  said  about  it,  and  to 
try  to  be  in  readiness  for  it.  The  Board  of 
Health  teaches  that  longevity  and  strength  of 
body  and  mind  while  the  man  does  live,  are  valu- 
able assets  of  Combine  and  greatly  enhance  money 
values  by  relief  from  dread  uncertainties.  There 
is  nothing  like  having  a  thing  settled.  Health 
and  happiness  depend  much  on  it.  Combine  ac- 


174  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

tually  settles  things,  and  by  his  system  of  co- 
operation in  production  of  food,  and  his  impar- 
tiality in  the  distribution  of  all  that  is  produced, 
assures  us  all,  every  American,  against  poverty. 
Did  any  man  ever  get  rich  enough  under  compe- 
tition to  be  free  from  the  unhealthy  unrest  and 
dread  of  poverty4?  Thanks  to  Combine,  every 
man  is  rich  enough  now,  and  uniquely  so,  for  the 
very  reason  that  others — all  others  are  also  rich 
enough,  and  so  do  not  need  or  want  to  take  the 
other  man's  property  or  home  any  more  than  a 
woman  wants  or  needs  two  husbands;  it  takes 
only  one  home  to  satisfy,  and  one  does  satisfy. 

"  'Another  thing,'  said  Mrs.  Lazarus,  'do  you 
notice  that  all  our  homes  are  built  on  or  very  near 
the  public  roads,  as  carefully  so,  as  homes  in  the 
city  used  to  be  built  and  are  still  being  built  near 
the  street,  with  an  eye  to  blending  the  road  decora- 
tions with  the  lawn  and  house  decorations'?  This 
our  landscape  gardeners  are  very  particular  about, 
and  your  choice  of  that  occupation  reminds  me  of 
words  very  popular  now  as  prophetic  of  the  Com- 
bine Age,  by  an  old  author,  that  I  quote  from 
memory : 


BE  A  FRIEND  TO  MAN 


"  There  were  hermit  souls  that  lived  withdrawn, 

In  the  place  of  their  self-content; 
There  were  souls  like  stars  that  dwelt  apart 

In  a  fellowless  firmament; 
There  were  pioneer  souls  that  but  blazed  their  paths 

Where  highways  never  ran — 
But  let  me  live  by  the  side  of  the  road 

And  be  a  friend  to  man. 

"  'Let  me  live  in  a  house  by  the  side  of  the  road 

Where  the  race  of  men  go  by — 
The  men  who  are  good  and  the  men  who  are  bad, 

As  good  and  as  bad  as  I. 
I  would  not  sit  in  the  scorner's  seat, 

Or  hurl  the  cynic's  ban — 
Let  me  live  in  a  house  by  the  side  of  the  road 

And  be  a  friend  to  man. 

"  'I  see  from  my  house  by  the  side  of  the  road, 

By  the  side  of  the  highway  of  life, 
The  men  who  press  with  the  ardor  of  hope, 

The  men  who  are  faint  with  the  strife, 
But  I  turn  not  away  from  their  smiles  nor  their  tears, 

Both  parts  of  an  infinite  plan — 
Let  me  live  in  my  house  by  the  side  of  the  road 
And  be  a  friend  to  man.' " 

— Sam  Walter  Foss. 


175 


CHAPTER   X 
MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS 

"The  gratitude  that  filled  my  mind  and  heart 
after  becoming  an  American,  a  shareholder,  'if 
you  please,'  in  all  the  productive  property  around 
me,  and  that  only  because  I  am  an  American,  one 
of  the  'of,  for  and  by  the  people/ 

"I  knew  that  practically  nothing  had  been 
given  to  me,  only  the  tools  with  which  to  get  the 
best  living  possible  to  civilization  Christianized. 
Productive  property,  very  properly  so  called,  af- 
ter all  was  largely  the  tools  by  which  men  'make 
a  living.'  Thoughtfully,  it  would  have  been 
strange  if  enlightened  America  had  not  thought 
out  and  adopted  a  fairer,  a  better  financial  way 
than  for  some  making  the  living  for  all,  and  then, 
after  it  was  made,  the  weary  producer  still  com- 
pelled to  also  stand  up  and  fight  with  financial 
athletes  for  a  'small  share'  of  what  he  had  toiled 
to  produce,  especially  when  everybody  intuitively 
knew  that  every  man  was  justly  entitled  to  all  he 


176 


t£* 


Homes  of  the  common  people — all  different  but  tasteful 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  177 

produced,  but  now  to  actually  get  it  seemed  too 


good  to  be  true." 


"It  seems,  Mrs.  Lazarus,  that  we  are  going  Dr. 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  one  better,  and  establish- 
ing an  Autocracy  of  the  supper  table." 

"As  we  stepped  into  the  library,  Mr.  Lazarus 
said :  'Let  me  hand  you  a  book  to  read,  Mr.  Sys- 
tem, least  you  weary  of  my  'much  speech,'  as  I 
sometimes  think  some  may  have  wearied  with  Dr. 
Holmes." 

"As  I  sat  and  read  a  beautiful  story,  beautiful 
in  part  by  the  fact  that  it  reflected  no  overbear- 
ing affluence  of  wealth  in  contrast  with  biting 
poverty,  of  a  favored  few  rich,  or  bigots,  in  con- 
trast with  the  coarseness  of  the  despised,  defeated, 
despoiled,  humiliated  masses.  The  trend  of  the 
novel  showed  no  insinuation  of  the  aristocrat  over 
the  plebeian,  or  the  uneasiness  of  the  rich  man  to 
day  lest  he  should  become  poor  tomorrow;  a  de- 
lightful romance  of  undisturbed  love  and  con- 
tentment, as  virtuous  as  it  was  confident,  a  pen- 
picture  of  the  Combine  Age." 

*         *         *         *         *         *          * 

"Well,  Mr.  System,  you  have  had  a  long  day 
today." 


178  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"Yes,  sir;  but  the  ride  was  a  pleasant  one,  and 
the  meeting  with  the  General  Superintendent  of 
Public  Highways  was  most  cordial." 

"Was  his  department  in  need  of  help?" 

"Yes  and  no;  he  said  that  a  Mr.  Hart  of  road 
district  number  204  had  requested  a  transfer  to 
a  mountain  district,  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Board 
of  Health,  and  his  place  would  be  vacant  after 
the  first  of  next  month,  and  that  after  working 
with  the  committee  of  experts  for  the  usual  ten 
days  and  receiving  their  voucher  of  efficiency  in 
the  landscape  department,  he  would  gladly  ap- 
point me  to  fill  Mr.  Hart's  place;  so  he  gave  me 
a  letter  to  the  committee  and  I  report  to  them 
tomorrow." 

"That  will  also  be  some  distance  away." 

"Yes,  but  it  only  lasts  the  ten  days  of  exami- 
nation and  then,  if  accepted,  I  will  naturally  live 
in  district  204,  near  my  work." 

"That  will  necessitate  that  the  house  building 
department  build  you  a  house  of  your  own." 

"Yes,  but  before  I  venture  on  so  important  a 
matter  as  that  I  must  first  have  my  wife  with  me 
to  do  the  planning,  to  select  the  location,  etc. 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  179 

Until  such  a  time,  Mr.  Lazarus,  I  would  be  glad 
to  make  my  home  with  you." 

"Certainly." 

"Certainly,  and  I  would  be  delighted  to  enter- 
tain Mrs.  System;  and  we  women,  when  your  wife 
comes,  will  find  much  of  interest  to  talk  about  for 
the  two  months  required  by  the  building  depart- 
ment to  complete  a  new  cottage  for  her." 

"Thank  you;  as  soon  as  I  am  permanently  lo- 
cated in  this  or  some  other  job,  I  must  send  for  my 
wife.  Ha !  Ha !  She  will  be  as  much  surprised  at 
my  telling  her  what  I  have  actually  found  the 
facts  here  in  America  to  really  be,  now  under 
Combine,  as  I  have  been.  It  will  be  to  her,  no 
doubt,  like  it  has  been  to  me;  an  invitation  up 
higher,  when  I  only  expected  the  low  seat  of  the 
missionary  (and  she  of  being  perhaps  soon,  too, 
a  missionary's  widow),  to  really  find  a  home  of 
our  own,  one  of  the  luxurious  comfort,  that  I  see 
on  every  hand  and  so  much  enjoyed  by  everybody. 
Do  you  know,  Mr.  Lazarus,  that  as  I  look  out  on 
these  delicious  environments  I  have  a  feeling  that 
I  had  as  a  child,  before  I  had  been  compelled  to 
learn  the  appalling  lessons  of  selfishness,  the  sel- 
fishness taught  by  Competition,  the  unchristian 
'every  fellow  for  himself,'  'take  the  best  for  your- 


180  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

self,'  drilled  into  children  from  their  very  youth 
up,  until  it  had  become  the  gross  habit  of  a  greedy 
life.  This  habit,  this  vicious  education,  this 
cheating  and  selfishness  changed  to  that  of  in- 
dustrial self-interest,  as  seen  in  these  surroundings, 
I  say  my  childhood  feeling  returns  to  me  again, 
when  nothing  was  completely  good  until  I  had 
shared  it  with  my  mother,  now  with  my  wife." 

"Truth,  truth,  every  word  truth;  competition 
had  so  educated  us  to  be  selfish  that  our  conscience 
became  seared  and  we  could  cheat, — cheat  our 
enemy;  cheat  our  neighbor;  cheat  our  friend; 
cheat  mother;  until  we  became  disgusted  with  our 
very  own  cheating  habit,  educated  meanness,  it 
was,  and  so  universal  had  the  disgust  become  that 
in  the  fullness  of  time  five  men  agreed  between 
themselves  that  so  far  as  they  were  concerned 
they  would  quit  cheating  each  other,  and  so  they 
pledged  each  the  other  by  an  act  of  legal  incor- 
poration, and  these  five  rivals  at  once  became 
allies,  and  this  very  act  set  the  pace  for  all 
America.  That  act  has  solved  the  industrial  prob- 
lem and  you  see  the  result  all  around  you  in  these 
beautiful  homes,  in  these  smiling  faces  and  the 
cheerful  heartfelt  expressions  you  hear  from  every 
one,  as  we  pass :  Trust  me,'  and  we  can  and  do." 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  181 


"I  want  to  ask  you,  Mr.  Lazarus,  Has  Combine 
cured  that  dreadful  malady,  'panics,5  that  de- 
stroyed the  financial  hopes  of  millions  of  people^ 
If  it  has  not,  its  work  is  not  yet  complete.  Panics 
kept  us  always  in  dread;  when  it  was  not  on,  we, 
rich  or  poor  alike,  stood  guard,  never  knowing 
when  it  would  come  and  devour  us." 

"I  am  glad  to  assure  you  that  a  'panic'  is  im- 
possible in  the  Combine  Age.  It  was  a  feature  of 
Competition.  You  well  said  that  under  compe- 
tition nearly  all  lived  in  an  anxious  state  of  un- 
rest, as  of  some  impending  doom;  the  panic  was 
doom  itself.  'Nobody  could  trust  anybody'  dur- 
ing a  panic.  How  very  different  now ;  'Trust  me' 
is  not  only  our  salutation  on  our  lips,  but  it  is  in 
our  hearts;  we  mean  it;  'trust'  is  financial  busi- 
ness brought  up  to  date.  Competition  had  no  ele- 
ment of  trust  in  it,  it  had  no  financial  'system'  in 
it,  no  guiding  hand;  so,  occasionally,  some  men 
who  had  money  or  could  get  money,  got  all  they 
could  and  locked  it  up  to  protect  themselves.  We 
could  not  always  blame  them;  they  had,  or  sup- 
posed they  had,  a  reason  to  fear  financial  disaster. 
Each  man  stood  alone  financially,  but  now 
America  is  a  unit;  we  all  stand  together.  It's  the 
duty  of  our  secretary  of  finance  to  attend  to  the 


182  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

monetary  part  of  the  system.  We  can  trust  him; 
he  is  not  only  responsible,  but  he  is  part  of  the 
concern  and  his  individual  self-interest  is  wrapped 
up  in  making  money  supply  just  what  it  ought  to 
be.  He  is  competent,  but  has  nothing  to  fear  be- 
cause every  American  is  behind  him.  The  self- 
interest  of  every  shareholder  sustains  him.  He 
represents  Combine,  who  holds  the  helm,  and  with 
the  grip  of  a  self-interested  giant  who  provides 
for  himself  by  providing  for  all  the  shareholders. 
Confidence'?  Yes,  the  confidence  that  a  man  has 
in  himself,  who  is  conscious  of  the  fact  that  he 
is  complete  master  of  the  situation.  I  repeat,  a 
panic  is  hereafter  as  impossible  as  suicide." 

*  *  *  *  *  jf{  s|c 

"That  I  may  the  better  understand  in  the  out- 
set all  that  is  to  be  expected  of  me,  industrially, 
morally  and  religiously,  will  you  go  over  the  re- 
quirements of  a  loyal  American,  as  it  appears  to 
you?" 

"Well,  in  the  first  place,  I  would  modestly  sug- 
gest, be  perfectly  natural ;  do  not  pretend  to  know 
more  than  you  do;  everything  comes  perfectly 
easy  to  the  man  who  is  not  artificial,  who  does  not 
cput  on' ;  neither  is  the  presumptive  or  pretentious 
man,  that  is  a  man  'ill  at  ease,'  a  profitable  man 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  183 


to  the  Combine  (that  is,  to  himself).  He  is  less 
strong,  less  patient  and  less  healthy  than  the  man 
who  is  at  ease,  onto  his  job.  Of  course,  every  man 
is  justified  in  bringing  himself  up  to  par  value  for 
the  Combine  (that  is,  for  himself),  and  if  that 
calls  a  man  to  be  general  superintendent,  fore- 
man, or  in  the  ranks,  he  honors  himself,  he  honors 
the  Combine,  who  needs  men  for  every  station. 
Be  sure  to  be  natural,  just  yourself,  that's  all; 
then  one  place  will  be  as  creditable  to  you  as  an- 
other. I  run  a  lathe ;  I  can  run  it  with  the  greatest 
ease  and  profit  to  the  Combine,  that  is,  to  myself. 
I  am  not  so  well  qualified  to  do  anything  else. 
The  Combine  is  satisfied,  I  am  satisfied,  hence  my 
life  is  a  continual  round  of  pleasure  to  me,  for  I 
am  conscious  that  I  am  filling  my  individual  niche 
full  (under  competition  no  American  knew 
whether  he  was  doing  his  whole  duty  or  not).  I 
am  not  seeking  promotion;  I  am  promoted,  for  I 
am  already  placed  by  natural  selection  where  I  be- 
long, and  that  is  promotion ;  and  if  in  the  trend  of 
events  Combine  should  offer  me  another  job,  I 
would  not  consider  it  in  the  sense  of  a  promotion, 
and  would  accept  it,  if  at  all,  only  on  the  grounds 
that  I  would  be  more  profitable  to  the  Combine 
(that  is,  to  myself)  there  than  here." 


184  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"Second,  be  moral,  and  you  will  find  it  easier 
to  be  moral  with  a  home  and  family  of  your  own 
and  a  job  assured  to  you  in  the  support  of  that 
home  than  if  you  feared  every  man  you  met 
wanted  to  cheat  you  and  you  him.  Any  man  can 
be  of  more  profit  to  the  Combine  (i.  e.,  to  himself) 
who  is  a  moral  man." 

"Third,  be  religious.  It  is  all  right  to  be  in- 
dustrious; it  is  all  right  to  be  moral;  but  there  is 
a  peculiar  contentment  that  comes  with  what  Paul 
calls  'Godliness,'  that  comes  to  the  man  who  is 
religious,  for,  after  all,  suppose  there  is  no 
Heaven  that  may  be  obtained  or  no  Hell  that  may 
be  shunned,  is  the  delusion  (if  you  have  ever 
called  it  a  delusion)  of  the  religious  man  any  det- 
riment to  him  or  to  society?  Now,  on  the  other 
hand,  suppose  the  Bible  is  true,  and  that  there 
really  is  a  Heaven,  and  you  have  made  no  prepar- 
ation for  it  until  it  is  too  late,  is  there  any  way  of 
computing  your  loss?  If  there  is  a  way  of  safety 
pointed  out,  is  it  not  wise  and  restful  to  walk  in 
that  way, — to  be  safe?  I  repeat,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  moral  man,  that  any  man  can  be  of  more  profit 
to  the  Combine  (that  is,  to  himself)  who  feels 
safe, — a  religious  man.  'Godliness'  with  content- 
ment is  great  gain  to  the  man — to  Combine.  There 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  185 

is  a  desirable  comfort  in  taking  God  at  His  word, 
which  is  wholesome  to  both  body  and  soul.  Fur- 
thermore, Americans  have  a  special  reason  for 
gratitude  to  the  God  of  the  Bible,  for  our  institu- 
tions are  founded  on  the  Book  and  Combine  is 
one  of  these  institutions,  the  legitimate  sequence 
of  the  Corporation  Act.  It  was  His  son  who  gave 
this  industrial  law  upon  which  American  industry 
is  now  built:  'Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them' ;  this 
now  is  the  law  between  shareholders,  yet  we  were 
a  long  time  in  getting  to  it.  You  will  find,  Mr. 
System,  that  it  is  many  times  easier  to  be  consist- 
ent, to  be  religious,  with  a  job  assured,  and  a 
home  of  your  very  own  to  live  in  (how  could  a 
churchman  be  consistent  and  compete?  Not  at 
all).  Your  home  will  be  a  reminder,  an  emblem 
to  you  of  a  home  in  Heaven.  Then,  again,  you 
have  now  in  the  Combine  Age,  plenty  of  time  to 
think  and  prepare,  as  your  soul  leads  you  to  pre- 
pare for  a  Heaven;  also  to  picture  to  yourself,  if 
there  be  a  God,  what  line  of  conduct  would  be  the 
most  pleasing  to  Him.  The  carking  care  of  a 
competitive  life  heretofore  left  little  time,  and 
frequently  less  disposition,  to  think  or  care  even 
whether  there  be  any  God,  or  if  there  were,  whether 


186  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

He  cared  for  you.  Americans,  obeying  now  this, 
His  industrial  law,  makes  us  kin  to  Him,  opens 
up  a  way  to  Him,  and  we  the  more  readily  turn  to 
His  Divine  law,  of  love  for  Him,  and  love  for  our 
brother.  So,  brotherly  love  is  all  right  in  its  place, 
but,  as  you  see,  love  is  not  adapted  to  'making  a 
living';  we  must  needs  not  only  separate  these 
things  properly,  but  take  them  in  their  proper  or- 
der. Paul  has  it  straight:  he  says  to  the  Corin- 
thians (15:46),  'Howbeit  that  was  not  first  which 
is  spiritual,  but  that  which  is  natural,  and  after- 
wards that  which  is  spiritual?7  Salvation  could 
not,  did  not,  make  a  living.  Until  Combine 
came,  we  had  been  reversing  this  order  and  preach- 
ing love  to  God,  brotherly  love  as  first,  and  that 
as  a  way  to  obtain  the  industrial  fairness  of  the 
'as  ye  would'  law,  the  fairness  found  in  the 
Golden  Rule;  whereas,  industrial  fairness,  the 
natural  first  law  of  nature,  i.  e.,  self-preservation, 
the  real  life^  and  the  getting  something  to  live  on, 
to  continue  that  life,  logically,  came  first  in  order, 
that  settled,  as  Combine  settles  it,  then  love,  logi- 
cally came  afterward,  if  at  all.  Industrial  Com- 
bine now  makes  brotherly  love  possible.  It  was 
impossible  while  you  knew  your  brother,  so-called, 
carried  a  concealed  competition  knife." 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  187 

"I  came  to  America  as  a  reformer,  Mr. 
Lazarus,  but  am  happy  to  acknowledge  my- 
self, no,  not  reformed,  but  rather  industrially 
converted.  I  see  that  Combine  is  not  a 
Reform,  but  Combine  converts,  gets  us  going  in 
an  opposite  direction.  I  have  always  know  intu- 
itively, that  competition  was  an  iniquity,  and  the 
Bible  (that  Book  competitors  were  afraid  to  do 
with,  or  do  without),  is  very  personal  and  says, 
'If  I  regard  iniquity  in  my  heart,  God  will  not 
hear  me.'  I  can  see  that  this  meant  and  applied 
to  all  who  compete,  for  no  man  could  get  inside 
a  church  and  be  immune  from  competition,  or  stay 
out  and  blatantly  ignore  or  neglect  the  teachings 
of  that  'as  ye  would  law'  or  bluff  his  way  into 
God's  Heaven.  We  each  of  us,  saint  so-called,  or 
sinner  so-called,  have  too  fine  an  instinct  regard- 
ing the  right  of  a  business  transaction,  or  the 
wrong  of  getting  a  living  by  the  sweat  of  another 
man's  brow,  rather  than  our  own,  or  taking  any- 
thing without  giving  a  satisfactory  equivalent,  an 
equivalent  not  to  the  man  only,  but  to  our  own 
sense  of  honor  and  industrial  fairness. 

"All  intuitively  know  that  Competition  is  im- 
moral, irreligious,  and  industrially  wrong,  aye  the 
very  instinct  of  selfishness.  I  had,  like  almost  every- 


188  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

body,  been  content  to  excuse  myself  by  saying  I 
can't  help  it;  I  must  take  the  best  in  a  trade;  all 
must  compete;  we  can't  help  it,  etc.  I  still  see  that 
it  could  not  have  been  helped  either,  outside  of 
industrial  combination  of  all  the  people,  unless  a 
man  lived  a  hermit  life.  I  also  saw  that  men 
could  have  combined,  and  in  proof  of  this  fact 
many  had  combined,  and  that  by  simply  going  on 
and  making  the  Combine  large  enough  it  would 
inspire  the  implicit  confidence  of  all  men,  that  is, 
all  Americans,  giving  ample  protection,  guaran- 
teeing or  giving  complete  assurance  to  the  people 
as  a  whole.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  could  we 
'trust,'  but  with  your  Combine,  aye,  'our  Com- 
bine, if  you  please,  as  a  basis  to  build  upon,  it  be- 
ing as  broad  as  this  great  American  domain,  we 
could  have,  and  I  am  glad  to  find  that  America 
does  now  have,  in  it  the  completest  confidence, 
and  I  hear  the  echo,  'trust,'  industrial  'trust,'  from 
every  hillside,  and  feel  it  in  my  very  soul." 

"Yes,  Christian  consistency  is  now  possible  to 
the  American  church;  it  was  impossible  under 
competition,  Mr.  System,  and  compunction  of 
conscience  from  business  inconsistency,  that  no 
American  knew  how  to  avoid,  almost  drove  vital 
piety  out  of  the  American  church,  Catholic  or 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  189 

Protestant,  especially  after  we  became  aware  that 
there  was  a  way  to  live  without  taking  the  best 
in  a  trade,  without  fighting,  without  competing. 
The  way  of  the  Combine  enables  all  to  actually 
quit  cheating,  that  is  the  only  way  to  be  sure  not 
to  be  cheated.  We  now  have  opened  up  a 
straight  path  to  the  heart  of  our  Heavenly 
Father,  by  being  industrially  fair  to  each  other, 
fair  to  the  man,  whom  He  made  in  His  own 
image.  'We  are  fair  to  Him.  Inasmuch  as  ye 
have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these,  my 
brethren,  ye  have  done  unto  Me/  Math.  25 140. 

"I  have  not  had  time  yet  to  look  in  upon  what 
Combine  has  done  for  the  education  of  the  chil- 
dren; I  have  only  noticed  that  they  are  univer- 
sally well  dressed  and  uniformly  polite.  I  must 
conclude  from  their  ladylike  and  gentlemanly 
bearing  that  they  are  well  'brought  up.'  These 
accomplishments  that  I  see  do  not  come  without 
careful  training  and  devout  care  upon  the  part 
of  some  one." 

"Yes,  this  that  you  see  and  hear  is  the  sequence, 
not  so  much  of  education  as  it  is  from  the  equality 
of  opportunity  for  education.  Under  competition 
even  the  children  ranked  according  to  the  wealth 
of  their  parents;  educated,  yes,  some  of  them,  at 


190  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

great  expense,  too,  but  the  education  frequently 
amounted  to  a  dissipation  of  learning,  producing 
a  recklessness  of  behavior,  that  of  a  spoiled  child ; 
a  feeling,  aye,  a  saying  by  both  word  and  action, 
'My  father  is  worth  ten  times  as  much  as  your 
father;  he  can  send  me  to  college;  I  am  not  going 
to  work,  not,  I,'  etc.  Competition  cultivated  the 
vanity  of  the  human  animal.  Lust  needs  no  edu- 
cating. Combine  educates,  not  in  the  same 
branches,  but  really  educates  all,  and  at  points 
where  education  is  needed.  It  does  not  pay  to  be 
frivolous. 

"Combine  was  inaugurated  by  an  act  of  legis- 
lation, positive  in  its  character.  The  'Corporation 
Act'  was  inaugurated  by  real  statesmen,  men, 
manly  men.  Yet,  this  act  had  been  battered  at 
for  an  age  by  children,  legislating  'acts  negative 
in  character'  to  cripple  Combine,  to  find  and  try 
to  destroy  the  secret  of  its  great  power,  but  to  lit- 
tle or  no  avail.  They  hindered  it,  of  course,  until 
an  age  of  wiser  men  came,  saw,  and  said,  the  fault 
is  not  in  the  'Corporation  Act'  at  all,  but  in  not 
extending  it  to  all  the  people ;  in  not  Americaniz- 
ing it,  making  it  American,  i.  e.,  'of,  for  and  by 
all  the  people.'  Laborers  'waked  up,'  capitalists 
'waked  up,'  and  to  find  that  their  interests  were 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  191 

identically  the  same,  and  that  the  'Corporation 
Act'  not  only  led  the  'way  out,'  but  it  would  set- 
tle the  Labor  question  completely,  and  with  it,  all 
kindred  questions,  and  in  such  a  way  that  they 
would  forever  stay  settled.  Laborers  and  capital- 
ists came  together,  and  adopted  Combine  in  the 
interest  of — aye  to  the  industrial  salvation  of  all 
the  people.  Now  Combine  really  and  systemati- 
cally can  educate  properly,  not  only  the  mind,  but 
the  whole  human  animal,  and  the  principal  indus- 
try of  America  is  now  'making  men,'  gentlemen, 
gentlewomen.  We  begin  earlier  in  the  life,  design 
better,  and  continue  later,  and  we  are  eliminating 
the  brutish,  and  building  character.  Character 
humane,  based  on  that  same  solid  foundation,  laid 
in  that  eternal  principle  of  right,  enacted  by  our 
fathers,  the  founders  of  the  'Corporation  Act,' 
which  act  means  equality,  both  political  and  in- 
dustrial. Equality  means  American  dividends, 
shareholders,  allies;  no  longer  industrial  hatred 
and  rivalry,  but  combine  of,  for  and  by  all  the 
people.  We  learn  that  Combine  is  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  a  financial  investment ',  not  designed 
in  itself  to  appeal  to  their  pity,  sympathy,  mor- 
ality or  religion.  Men  may  not  have  any  of  these 
attributes  to  appeal  to,  but  they  must  have  some- 


192  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

thing  to  eat — a  living — so  Combine  does  appeal 
to  their  stomachs,  first  satisfying  that^  then  pro- 
ceeds to  moralize  and  Christianize.  Combine  does 
not  crowd  a  sentiment  upon  man,  but  it  demands 
a  hearing,  first,  as  a  business  fact,  that  must  be 
answered  today  by  three  square  meals.  Evolution 
or  revolution,  or  reform,  or  the  sweet  by  and  by 
cannot  satisfy  the  hunger  of  man  or  child  who 
needs  three  square  meals  every  day  and  can  get 
but  one.  But  now,  with  a  full  stomach  and  a  full 
larder,  an  assurance  of  plenty  settled  for  tomor- 
row, for  all  time,  then  are  they  competent  to  serve 
God  and  man,  to  bless  and  be  a  blessing.  No 
way  was  ever  found  to  completely  meet  these  re- 
turning wants  of  the  human  body  until  it  was  met 
ten  years  ago  by  the  Combine  of  all  the  people. 
Having  such  a  basis  for  ourselves  and  our  chil- 
dren, we  can  and  do  more  certainly  'go  on  to  per- 
fection,5 morally,  religiously,  physically,  educat- 
ing our  children  both  body  and  soul,  for  time  and 
eternity.  The  principle  of  inclusion  of  combine  in- 
stead of  the  exclusion  of  competition  come  in  here. 
It  costs  but  little  more,  aye,  it  may  be  less  to  give 
all  a  higher  education  than  the  few.  The  princi- 
ple which  makes  all  operation  on  a  large  scale  pro- 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  193 

portionately  cheaper  holds  to  education  also,  our 
whole  'system'  is  a  school  now,  when  do  as  you 
would  be  done  by'  is  given  with  the  mother's 
milk.  Being  fed  upon  it,  it  becomes  part  of  our 
nature  and  our  little  children  wonder  when  told 
that  it  was  not  always  taught.  No  single  thing, 
Mr.  System,  is  so  important  to  every  American  as 
to  have  for  neighbors  those  highly  educated,  these 
are  as  much  conditions  of  a  happy  life  as  the  air 
we  breathe.  A  man  cannot  be  satisfied  if  he  has 
to  mingle  in  a  malodorous  crowd  by  simply  per- 
fuming himself.  The  coming  generation  will 
have  better  educated  parents  to  teach  them.  For, 
after  all,  the  poison  of  competition  will  have  to 
be  bred  out  and  the  'as  ye  would  law'  of  Christ 
and  of  Combine  bred  in.  The  labor  that  Compe- 
tition laid  upon  children  and  required  of  mothers 
enfeebled  the  very  spring  of  life,  the  carking  care 
for  self  and  family  crushed  both  child  and  mother 
mentally  as  well  as  physically.  Combine  comes 
to  the  rescue  of  both  and  bid  them  cheer  up,  a 
livelihood  is  assured.  The  strain  of  a  ceaseless 
battle  for  bread  is  passed  over  to  Combine  now 
and  he  bears  it  as  a  feather's  weight  and  lets  the 
mother  and  the  child  go  free.  This  is  why  all  our 


194  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

young  people  can  look  you  in  the  eye  instead  of 
downcast  at  their  clothes  and  poverty. 

*  *  *  *  *  jjc  * 

"Mr.  Lazarus,  will  you  explain  again  to  me 
how  Combine  really  got  possession  of  all  property 
so  easily.  Has  he  paid  for  it  yet?  In  a  word, 
how  did  he  settle  with  original  owners?" 

"Perhaps  I  can  make  it  still  plainer  to  you  by 
following  up  the  illustrative  fact.  Five  men,  not 
necessarily  friends,  not  necessarily  good  men,  or 
temperate,  or  moral,  religious,  but  just  men,  who 
eat)  that's  all ;  these  men  had  got  only  far  enough 
to  discover  that  Combines  somehow  could  succeed 
against  any  and  every  opposition  that  shareholders 
could  work  for,  but  positively  could  not  work 
against  each  other  in  Combine.  They  at  first  ob- 
jected to  the  peculiar  sacredness  implied  in  the 
Corporate  pledge,  but  they  looked  again  and  saw 
that  the  pledge  was  the  vital  part,  the  life  of  it, 
that  is,  if  it  pledged  me  to  help  you,  it  also 
pledged  you  to  help  me,  it  bound  coming  and  go- 
ing, and,  like  marriage,  it  had  no  time  limit  and 
no  provision  for  divorce.  So  you  see  that  the 
Combine  incorporated  was  in  itself  a  fortune  al- 
ready made — a  thing  of  value  in  itself,  of  actual 
intrinsic  value,  a  financial  investment,  one  that 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  195 

any  American,  no  matter  how  poor  he  was,  could 
make.  This  fact  not  only  gives  it  the  character 
of  an  investment,  but  a  safe  investment.  It  also 
was  possessed  of  life — business  life — things  can't 
own,  government  can't  own,  brutes  can't  own, 
man  only  is  competent  to  own,  to  sue 
and  be  sued.  Combine,  by  the  genius  of 
its  construction,  is  individual  ownership,  that 
is  it  enabled  men  to  own  as  individuals  and  yet 
operate  as  a  whole  body  of  shareholders,  so  that 
no  original  owner  ceased  to  actually  own;  all  the 
property  he  owned  before,  but  it  confidently 
placed  all  his  property  where  it  would  more  surely 
make  him  and  his  a  luxurious  living,  that  is,  in  a 
Combine  of,  for  and  by  all  the  people,  nothing 
could  possibly  be  safer." 

"Upon  full  investigation  and  conference  of 
now  self-interested  and  earnest  men,  intent  on 
finding  an  honorable  way  out,  plans  and  specifica- 
tions were  thought  out  by  experts  and  an  agree- 
ment finally  entered  into  by  which  all  productive 
property  should  be  merged  into  one  combine, 
placed  under  one  management,  pledged  by  the 
vow  of  the  Corporation  Act.  When  all  Ameri- 
cans were  so  pledged,  legally  bound,  this  Combine 
was  then  as  fully  competent  as  any  one  individual 


196  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

to  transact  business,  to  agree  with  original  owners 
as  to  values,  prices  of  property,  and  to  pay  for  it 
with  its  own  funds.  I  mention  incidentally  that 
it  has  already  paid,  with  the  exception  that  there 
are  yet  some  10-30  2  per  cent  bonds  unpaid,  and 
they  only  because  they  have  not  been  presented 
for  payment.  Such  bonds  are  at  the  option  of  the 
holder  for  thirty  years,  so  the  people  have  bought 
and  practically  paid  for  and  now,  in  less  than  ten 
years,  actually  own,  as  individuals,  all  property, 
by  and  through  the  medium  of  the  Combine.  This 
way  had  been  known  to  Standard  Oil,  railroad 
trusts  and  other  legal  corporations  for  years  be- 
fore and  was  the  secret  of  their  success,  they  could 
not  fail  to  succeed.  Then  came  a  sameness  of  in- 
dustrial interest,  a  feeling  of  oneness,  like  that  ex- 
ists between  man  and  wife.  This  confidence  took 
possession  of  all  Americans,  the  feeling,  if  you 
please  (as  I  can  have  no  higher  figures  to  liken  it) 
that  takes  hold  of  a  man  when  he  enters  into  the 
realization,  'Why,  yes,  I  am  part  of  the  concern; 
I  am  a  bonafide  shareholder  in  this  combine/ 
Every  man  I  meet  may  not  be  my  brother  to  love, 
but  in  whatever  light  I  may  esteem  him,  or  he  may 
esteem  me,  he  is  financially  bound  to  do  just  the 
right  thing  for  me,  and  I  for  him.  This,  Mr.  Sys- 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  197 

tern,  is  American  self-preservation,  which  is  the 
first  law  of  nature,  and  we  do  it  in  obedience  to 
that  law  only.  Business  matters  are  always  re- 
sponsive only  to  business  methods. 

"Has  Combine  had  any  effect  on  lessening  di- 
vorce? You  have  mentioned  the  fact  that  'the 
barriers  had  been  burned  away'  that  prevented 
marriages,  and  the  fact  that  adults  were  almost 
universally  married  and  living  in  homes  of  their 
own  planning.  Do  their  attractions  for  each  other 
remain  constant4?" 

"There  is  not  one  divorce  to  where  there  used 
to  be  a  hundred.  When  a  young  couple  engage 
themselves  to  each  other  as  mates,  they  seldom 
make  a  mistake,  i.  e.,  if  every  consideration  except 
Love  is  eliminated.  For  example,  when  there  is  a 
sufficient  bank  account  on  both  sides  to  look  at 
and  trust  in,  as  Combine  guarantees  to  all, 
whether  married  or  single,  and  no  such  thing  as 
salaries,  always  temporary  at  best,  to  fade  into 
thin  air  in  a  day,  a  wage  today  and  a  strike  to- 
morrow, but,  rather,  instead  of  one  being  rich  and 
another  poor,  they  meet  as  financial  equals; 
neither  are  dependent  upon  the  other  for  financial 
support.  Combine  in  itself,  remember,  is  a  finan- 
cial investment  and  is  a  support  to  every 


198  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

woman,  married  or  single,  and  wholly  because 
she  is  an  American  woman,  a  shareholder. 
Thus,  she  is  not  humiliated  by  looking  up  to 
some  lord  (who  may  or  may  not  be  observ- 
ant) for  a  new  hat  or  a  square  meal,  any  more 
than  he  is  to  look  to  her  for  food  and  clothes. 
Again,  if  one  were  dependent  on  another  for  the 
necessaries  of  life,  he  or  she  would  have  an  un- 
warrantable control  over  the  life  of  that  other — 
besides  'making  a  living'  is  an  affair  of  the  stom- 
ach,  not  of  the  heart.  Love  was  not  designed  to 
supply  food  and  raiment,  and  it  does  not;  that 
is  not  the  office  of  Love.  If  getting  a  living  were 
an  affair  of  the  heart,  then  hate  could  end  exist- 
ence by  withholding  supplies.  Neither  can  we 
trust  the  continuation  of  our  lives;  with  society 
it  may  disband,  so  may  a  political  government. 
This  fact  was  one  of  the  fatalities  of  So- 
cialism. No.  Mr.  System,  our  life  is  too  pre- 
cious to  us  to  trust  it  to  anything  or  to  anybody 
except  our  individual  self.  It  is  self-preservation, 
and  Combine  enables  women  to  depend  on  them- 
selves and  they  do  not  have  to  compromise  for 
bread.  Self-preservation  always  was  and  ever 
will  be  the  first  law  of  nature,  and  if  every  argu- 
ment I  have  heretofore  mentioned,  or  that  you 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  199 

can  think  of  in  favor  of  Combine  were  all  waived, 
this  one  fact,  standing  alone,  would  have  justified 
its  immediate  adoption,  namely,  that  no  adult 
man  or  woman  will  hereafter  depend  on  another 
man  or  woman  for  a  living.  It  is  in  the  genius  of 
Combine  that  every  individual  is  enabled  by  it 
to  depend  on  himself  or  herself  for  a  living;  each 
are  individual  shareholders  now,  and  in  a  Com- 
bine of  magnitude  sufficient  to  guarantee  divi- 
dends to  every  one  as  an  individual  shareholder, 
that  is,  to  every  citizen  a  'living.'  Combine  is  not 
a  husband,  not  a  wife,  not  society,  not  govern- 
ment, but  it  is  self;  individuals,  co-operating  with 
others,  not  only  to  'make  a  living/  but  for  the 
specific  purpose  of  thereby  making  a  good,  a  bet- 
ter, aye,  the  very  best  living  that  associated  hu- 
man ingenuity  can  devise,  and  in  complete  con- 
formity with,  and  obedience  to  the  'as  ye  would' 
law  of  that  one  who  knew,  and  said  'DO  unto 
others'  as  Combine  does.  Hence  neither  sex  marry 
for  financial  inducements,  that  is,  to  be  supported, 
neither  to  act  as  beasts  of  burden  for  the  other,  but 
for  love,  and  love  matches  stick,  and  will  ever 
stand  by  the  contract.  It  would  indeed  be  a  mean 
man  that  would  desert  the  mother  of  his  children 
to  marry  another  woman,  and  no  woman  for  very 


200  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

shame  would  desert  the  father  of  her  children  to 
marry  another  man.  Compunction  of  conscience 
would  bring  shudders  as  he  or  she  thought  of  that 
wife,  of  that  husband  once  loved.  Then  what  of 
the  children,  with  a  feeling  that  they  are  liable  to 
be  held  off  at  arm's  length,  as  next  door  to  being 
illegitimate?  Can  such  husbands,  such  wives, 
such  unfortunate  children  feel  to  be  even  good 
citizens,  comfortable  associates,  men  or  women 
above  suspicion,  and  withal  they  or  their  down- 
faced  children  as  profitable  to  the  Combine,  whose 
every  business  interests  lie  in  each  shareholder  be- 
ing at  his  or  her  best,  able  to  do  his  or  her  full  part 
in  support  of  the  Great  American  Corporation? 
Aye,  Mr.  System,  if  there  had  been  any  other  pos- 
sible way  of  settling  the  whole  industrial  problem 
than  the  'as  ye  would  way,'  surely  this  way,  the 
Combine  way,  the  business  way,  is  the  best  way. 
It  is  a  humane  way.  It  is  a  clean,  wholesome  way. 
Aye,  it's  God's  way. 

"I  don't  know  what  God  would  have  done  with 
us,  if  He  had  made  us  machines  and  to  run  us  as 
we  do  machines.  Sufficient  to  say  that  we,  in- 
stead of  being  machines,  are  free  moral  agents — 
we  can  accept  or  reject  even  the  'as  ye  would  law,' 
as  competitors  always  did.  We  are  responsible 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  201 

for  our  own  industrial  behavior.  He,  knowing  all 
things,  kindly  told  us  eighteen  hundred  years  ago 
just  how  to  manage  our  finances  in  order  to  suc- 
ceed. 'Do  as  you  would  be  done  by,'  this  applied, 
of  course,  to  saint  or  sinner,  converted  or  uncon- 
verted, to  every  one  who  eats,  hence  as  Combine 
is  composed  of  eaters,  then  why  not  settle  bodily 
nourishment  on  the  Christ  basis,  then  the  God  ele- 
ment in  man  can  unfold  naturally,  unfold  as  a 
rose  well  watered  and  in  the  sunshine.  This  un- 
folding is  apparent,  and  we  now  firmly  believe, 
because  of  adjusting  ourselves  fully  to  God's  or- 
der, self-preservation  before  salvation.  That  is, 
the  achievement  and  perpetuation  of  natural  life 
as  a  basis,  before  spiritual  life,  industrial  equity 
before  brotherly  love,  home  before  the  state.  Mr. 
System,  what  a  mockery  it  was  to  soldiers  in  the 
olden  days  before  Combine,  for  them  to  say  or 
think  that  they  were  fighting  for  a  home,  when 
they  had  none  to  fight  for,  and  thousands  of  them, 
under  competition,  never  could  get  a  home,  a 
house  of  their  very  own,  under  that  American  flag 
that  they  so  loyally  followed.  Property  was  then 
nearly  all  in  the  possession  of  the  few,  which 
needed  only  so  much  of  it  as  they  could  eat  to- 
day, that  is,  if  this  abundance  were  coupled  to- 


202  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

gether  with  the  complete  assurance  (that  only 
Combine  could  give)  of  an  abundance  tomorrow. 
You  know,  Mr.  System,  and  every  American  knew 
that  competition  had  always  tried  to  reverse  God's 
industrial  order  and  plans,  and  politics  and  religion 
had  unwittingly  been  dominated  by  competition, 
the  cheating  habit,  until  finally  the  Combine  Idea 
won  the  heads  and  the  hearts  of  the  American 
people  by  its  innate  excellence  and  invincible  at- 
tractiveness. All  this  is  germane  to  the  peaceable 
continuity  of  the  marriage  state,  where  divorce  is 
undesirable.  No  man  or  woman  is  or  can  be  'pov- 
ery  stricken'  who  is  now  an  American,  a  bonafide 
shareholder  in  the  American  Combine,  and  every 
man  or  woman  is  a  shareholder  by  virtue  of  the 
fact  that  he  or  she  is  an  American.  As  our  up-to- 
date  editors  have  traced  back  the  statistics, 
they  have  found  that  poverty,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, was  the  cause  of  ninety-nine  hundredths  of 
the  divorces.  Poverty,  real  or  prospective  pov- 
erty, or  the  fear  of  it,  tended  to  blunt,  aye,  to  de- 
stroy the  tender  ties  that  bound  husband  and  wife. 
The  hope  of  a  home  long  deferred  made  the  heart 
sick'  of  married  life,  and  the  loss  of  the  home  and 
property  frequently  embittered — aye,  changed 
love  to  hate,  and  begot  cruelty,  which  severed  the 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  203 

marriage  tie,  frequently  long  before  the  courts,  so 
that  the  action  of  courts  was  a  mere  formality. 

"Children  are  not  only  entitled  to  be  well  born, 
but  they  are  entitled  to  home,  with  all  home  can 
be  made  to  mean.  Look  at  the  crimson  blush  on 
the  face  of  a  child,  young  or  old,  whose  parents 
were  divorced,  disgusted  at  the  mere  mention  of 
home  or  parents.  The  passing  away  of  Compe- 
tition and  the  advent  of  the  Combine  Age  has 
already  reduced  divorce,  but  the  Board  of  Health 
are  now  considering  a  physical  examination  as 
well  as  the  compatibility  of  mental  temperament, 
before  granting  a  marriage  license,  on  the  hypoth- 
esis that  unborn  children  have  something  to  say 
(?)  about  who  their  parents  shall  be,  also  that 
the  Combine  itself  has  a  financial  interest  far 
greater  than  the  breeding  of  stock,  in  the  human 
animal,  than  to  permit  a  marriage  on  a  mere  tran- 
sient whim,  all  this  to  precede  a  marriage  license, 
and  then  when  once  married,  no  divorce,  except 
for  adultery,  and  adultery  punishable  by  exclu- 
sion from  society  of  the  guilty  one.  Divorce 
carries  with  it  a  too  far-reaching  disgrace  for  any 
ordinary  punishment. 

"Divorce  laughed  at  political,  moral,  or  re- 
ligious restraint,  all  because  equality  stopped  at 


204  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

political  equality  and  was  not  carried  on  into  in- 
dustrial equality. 

"Here  is  the  gist  of  the  whole  matter:  America 
had  lived  a  century  and  a  quarter,  and  she  had 
failed  to  fulfill  her  promise.  Tree  and  equal'  had 
inspired  her  people  to  political  endeavor;  they  had 
gained  political  equality.  That  flag  still  protects 
all,  all  alike  against  a  foreign  foe.  So  far,  so 
good;  but  America  stopped  at  political  equality. 
The  domestic  foe,  competition,  was  rather  en- 
couraged by  calling  it  free.  This  foe  had  waxed 
first  bold,  then  haughty,  finally  impudent,  until 
the  people  'waked  up'  to  find  that  a  moneyed 
monarch  had  set  up  a  throne  and  graft  so  com- 
mon that  it  became  popular.  We  had  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes,  a  king,  not  in  a  person,  but  'a 
frenzy  to  gain,'  no  matter  how.  A  tyrant,  called 
Competition,  had  usurped  the  throne  and  had  be- 
come a  thousand  fold  more  oppressive  and  un- 
merciful than  the  King  of  England  had  ever  been. 
Taxation  without  representation  of  a  paltry  two 
cents  on  the  hundred  dollars  was  shamed  into  in- 
significance by  this  Competitor,  who  ruthlessly 
claimed  the  right  to  take  it  all.  I  speak  of  the 
principle,  Mr.  System,  not  of  any  one  man.  The 
hidden  motive  in  Competition,  whose  intent  was 


Every  family  will  build  as  they  choose  in  the  Combine  age,  as  reasonably 
as  Americans  vote  as  they  choose. 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  205 

to  get  rich,  no  matter  if  it  did  reduce  every  other 
man  to  charity.  There  were  weak,  whining  sy- 
cophants then  that  said,  'this  can't  be  helped,  it's 
a  man's  personal  liberty;  we  can't  Combine,  it's 
in  our  natures  to  compete.  'Free  competition,' 
came  down  from  Jupiter  and  can't  be  spoken 
against;  great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,  Ameri- 
ca's Idol,  'free'  (?)  competition. 

"The  subject  still  mounts.  The  end  is  not  yet. 
The  beauties  of  the  Combine  Age  are  just  be- 
ginning to  unfold.  As  we  meditate  on  what  all 
the  people  may  expect  from  obedience  to  that  'as 
ye  would  law'  which  America  started  out  in  1776 
and  in  good  faith  to  obey  in  every  way,  and  went 
so  far  as  the  establishing  of  a  government  of,  for 
and  by  the  people,  and  then  stopped,  fell  down, 
not  realizing  that  government  was  only  a  shell,  an 
armor  of  protection,  while  the  great  heart  of 
'equality'  that  the  old  Declaration  so  pointedly 
referred  to,  which  was  real  equality,  was  only  to 
be  actually  found  after  all,  in  our  industrial  deal- 
ings of,  by  and  for  each  other.  Competition  was 
the  'not'  doing  it,  Combine  was  the  doing  it,  and 
divorce  is  one  of  the  sad  effects  of  Competition. 
Combine  removes  the  cause,  hence  the  effect  must 
cease. 


206  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

"I  have  good  news  tonight,  Mrs.  Lazarus;  the 
general  superintendent,  being  satisfied  with  my 
work  during  the  last  ten  days,  has  appointed  me 
overseer  of  Road,  District  No.  204,  in  the  place 
of  Mr.  Hart,  who  joyfully  took  the  afternoon 
scenic  train  for  the  mountains." 

"I  can  see  in  all  this,  Mr.  System,  that  both 
of  you  are  to  be  congratulated.  This  evidence 
shows  you  the  beauty  of  the  Americanized  Com- 
bine, which  can,  and  so  uniquely  does,  put  every 
American  in  his  or  her  proper  place  industrially. 
One  of  your  words  caught  my  attention — 'joy- 
fully.5 It  goes  to  substantiate  the  observation 
that  consumption  is  the  'hopeful  disease.'  All 
of  these  consumptives  (though  others  know  them 
to  be  confirmed  invalids)  are  hopeful  to  the  very 
last, — expect  to  get  well.  Thanks  to  Combine, 
though  it  cannot  cure  it,  it  does  give  these,  in  fact 
every  American,  not  only  a  chance  for  his  life,  but 
the  best  chance. 

"You  speak  of  the  disease,  Mr.  System, — what 
does  the  Board  of  Health  say  about  it*?  Do  they 
say  that  they  can  cure  consumption,  as  they  did 
ten  years  ago*? 

"Oh,  no.  Medical  men  do  not  have  to  lie  to 
their  patients  any  more  in  order  to  accumulate  a 
doctor's  bill;  it's  all  in  the  Combine  now.  It's 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  207 

how  I  would  like  to  be  treated  if  I  had  consump- 
tion. The  life  of  one  American  is  worth  as  much 
as  the  life  of  another  now,  on  the  same  basis  that 
the  vote  of  one  American  counts  for  as  much  as 
another.  The  Medical  Board  does  not  hesitate  to 
say,  however,  that  if  children  predisposed  to  con- 
sumption are  reared  in  the  right  environments  of 
climate,  etc.,  that  they  can  live  and  act  well  their 
part  through  a  long  life.  Weak  people,  either 
physically  or  mentally,  never  had  a  fair  chance 
under  Competition.  Existence  was  always  a 
struggle  then,  in  which  the  weaker  must  perish, 
'down  and  out.' 

"Ha,  ha!  it  would  seem  that  your  good  news 
has  taken  us  in  a  peculiar  direction;  but  it  is  all 
because  we  now  have  time,  ability  and  disposition 
to  care  for  our  neighbor,  Mr.  Hart,  though  he  was 
neglected  in  his  childhood,  having  then  no  medi- 
cal board  to  care  whether  he  lived  or  died,  and 
parents  who,  no  matter  how  much  they  loved  him, 
were  unable  to,  and  could  not,  give  him  a  chance, 
much  less  the  best  chance,  as  Elsie  and  Jamie  here 
now  have.  It  is  the  standing  wonder  what  the 
simple  change  of  motive  to  help  one  another 
(as  shareholders  in  Combine  naturally  do)  has 
actually  wrought  out  in  the  last  five  years;  also 
what  it  makes  possible  for  all  ages  to  come.  In 
1907  a  picture  that  helped  to  hasten  Combine 


208  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

went  the  round  of  all  the  dailies  of  that  time. 
It  showed  in  panorama  a  closed  auditorium  filled 
with  mothers  and  children — some  of  the  children 
in  arms,  some  leaning  on  the  mothers'  knees,  some 
standing  dependently  behind.  You  could  almost 
hear  a  voice  as  you  read  over  the  picture — 'Let  the 
mothers  out';  and  as  you  listened  for  reply  your 
eye  fell  to  the  bottom  and  you  read,  'We  will 
not  go  out  and  leave  our  children  in  thral- 
dom.' What  was  to  be  done*?  Something  worth 
while  had  to  be  done,  and  a  companion  picture 
showed  what  must  be  done.  It  showed  the  hand 
of  Combine,  with  the  grip  of  a  giant,  not  on  the 
women  and  children,  mind  you,  but  on  the  door, 
lifting  it  from  its  hinges,  Samson  like,  letting 
through  a  glimpse  of  the  'Combine  age,'  and  the 
eager  mothers  fairly  carrying  whole  families  out 
into  it.  One  did  not  need  to  be  told  that  these 
mothers  had  taken  refuge  preferably  in  this  prison, 
away  from  savage  competition,  which  was  waging 
relentless  war,  as  bitter  as  hell,  on  the  outside  of 
the  prison  walls.  Some  said  salvation  from  sin 
would  stop  the  cruel  war  and  open  the  door;  but 
no.  Religious  people  had  to  eat  (*?),  and  it  was 
up  to  them  to  compete  like  a  common  sinner,  or  to 
die,  to  starve,  and  still  leave  posterity  to  the 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  209 

pains  of  poverty.  'Salvation  was  not  the  way/ 
others  cried, — party  prohibition.  This  proved 
just  enough  of  a  delusion  to  be  a  snare.  'Prohi- 
bition was  not  the  way.'  Others  went  wild  over 
labor  unionism — a  class  fight,  (  ?)  a  fight  to  stop  a 
fight.  (?)  We  ought  to  have  known  better. 
When  could  such  a  war  end?  The  refrain  came 
back — never !  'Labor  unionism  was  not  the  way.' 
"Mr.  Lazarus  always  takes  great  delight  in 
talking  about  that  picture.  He  claims  it  brought 
him  a  wife  as  well  as  a  fortune,  and  often  says  to 
James  and  Elsie  when  he  shows  them  the  picture, 
'You  are  not  prisoners,  as  children  used  to  be  in 
the  "pen"  of  free  (  ?)  Competition.'  I  have  been 
waiting  to  say,  Mr.  System,  that  I  have  a  world 
worth  living  in,  to  show  Mrs.  System  when  she 
gets  here;  and  especially  gratifying  to  me  is  the 
part  the  'American  Woman'  (not  the  fabled  'New 
Woman,'  but  well,  for  want  of  a  higher  name, 
just  'Woman')  took  in  bringing  it  about.  She 
intuitively  saw  in  Combine  the  full  assurance  of 
home,  and  plenty  to  eat  for  the  family,  and,  too, 
that  the  food  came  'fair  and  square'  and  without 
a  fight.  These  facts  were  enough.  Morals,  re- 
ligion, politics,  were  all  well  enough  in  their 
order;  that  is,  after  plenty  of  bread  and  butter. 


210  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

Self-preservation  being  the  first  law  of  nature,  so 
the  American  Woman  put  on  her  most  winning 
ways  to  get  her  husband,  father,  sons,  to  quit 
fighting  and  combine.  We  planned  little  suppers, 
and  after  supper,  when  all  were  in  a  good  humor, 
some  bright  girl  or  woman  would  read  a  paper 
on  the  good  qualities  of  Combine  and  show  that 
Combine  was  not  some  great,  hideous  octopus,  but 
would  be  a  truly  good  Samaritan  to  us,  mothers 
especially,  who  had  literally  fell  in  among  com- 
petitive thieves,  who  had  literally  stripped  us  and 
our  children,  leaving  us  wounded,  half  dead  from 
poverty  or  the  fear  of  it;  and  how  that  a  moun- 
tain of  property  was  sometimes  swept  away  in  a 
night,  that  vast  property  under  Competition  was 
frequently  no  protection  at  all  to  posterity.  Then 
we  would  ask  the  men  present  to  dispute  it  if 
they  could.  Of  course  they  could  not.  Then  we 
would  kindly  ask  what  they  were  'going  to  do 
about  it.5  We  would  suggest  what  we  thought 
was  the  only  thing  to  do.  So,  little  by  little,  we 
won  them  away  from  fight  to  a  peaceable  way,  to 
Combine,  of,  for  and  by  all  Americans. 

"Many  would  hoot  at  the  word  'Equality,'  as 
though  it  meant  a  'dead  level.'  We  had  to  ex- 
plain, time  and  again,  that  the  Americanized 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  211 

Combine  would  have  just  an  opposite  effect;  that 
under  Competition  we  had  been  all  equally  poor, 
or  afraid  we  would  be,  and  to  be  poverty-stricken 
was  equality,  but  of  the  worst  sort;  while,  if  the 
'grub'  question  was  once  and  for  all  settled,  and 
every  American  had  a  separate  and  individual 
home  of  his  or  her  own  in  which  to  develop  indi- 
viduality, then  and  not  till  then  could  mankind 
become  distinctively  personal — get  away  from  the 
'dead  level'  that  poverty  exacted. 

"We  established  schools  to  educate  the  children 
of  any  age  or  size,  to  answer  all  questions,  and 
make  the  dark  places  light,  and  the  obscure  plain, 
and  the  hard  places  easy;  for  the  'American  way' 
does  not  admit  compulsion.  We  cannot  go  any 
faster  than  we  can  persuade  the  people  to  go  with 
us.  It  did  seem  incredible  to  many  for  a  money- 
less man  or  woman  to  get  into  a  corporation,  espe- 
cially on  an  equal  basis  with  others.  We  showed 
how  that  it  was  all  accomplished  by  the  provisions 
of  this  great  corporation.  Prospective  share- 
holders always  and  naturally  had  the  privilege  of 
making  the  provisions  of  their  own  corporation. 
So  had  we.  The  great  corporation  was  like  others 
in  most  points.  It  provided  distinctively  that  all 
Americans  must  be  shareholders  because  they 


212  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

were  Americans,  not  because  they  were  rich  or 
wise,  or  good,  and,  like  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence in  another  point,  that  is,  it  took  effect  by 
a  proclamation,  at  a  definite  time,  from  and  after 
which  there  was  no  such  thing  as  Competition. 
Combine  became  the  NEW  ORDER,  as  definitely  as 
this  country  became  a  republic  instead  of  a  mon- 
archy, from  and  after  July  4,  1776.  Another 
one  of  the  special  provisions  of  the  new  corpora- 
tion was  that  a  share  of  stock  was  set  at  a  low 
price,  to  make  it  seem  plain  and  easily  compre- 
hensive. Still  another  provision  was,  every 
American  must  have  one  share,  no  more,  no  less. 
They  began  equal,  and  self-interest  kept  them 
equal  shareholders,  as  it  had  kept  them  equal  citi- 
zens. Equality  is  the  provision  that  made  this 
Combine  above  all  others  distinctly  American. 
Small  corporations  had  had  some  one  or  all  other 
provisions  of  the  Great  Corporation,  except  this 
one;  that  is,  the  Great  Corporation,  like  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  included  all  Ameri- 
cans and  all  productive  property  in  its  provisions. 
No  loyal  Americans  could  be  left  out  of  the  cor- 
poration any  more  than  that  a  loyal  American 
could  be  left  out  of  the  protection  of  the  flag. 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  213 

"As  we  women  began  to  unfold  Combine  in 
our  little  after-supper  essays  and  informal  talks, 
the  whole  matter  showed  up  to  all  of  us  to  be 
rather  inherent;  that  is,  part  and  parcel  of  the 
American  idea,  FREE — EQUAL.  Combine  was 
the  true  way  for  poor  men  to  become  wealthy  in 
America,  as  well  as  the  only  way  for  rich  men  to 
keep  their  wealth. 

"They  used  to  tell  us  that  we  were  dreaming  of 
perfection.  We  would  ask  if  Stanard  Oil,  United 
Railroads,  the  beef  trust,  were  a  dream,  or  were 
the  personnel  of  these  corporations  perfect,  an- 
gelic spirits.  Then  if  these  trusts  were  a  reality, 
and  the  personnel  men,  brainy  business  men,  then 
our  trust  is  just  as  real  and  far  more  wide-awake, 
for  these  trusts  were  asleep  to  their  privileges,  un- 
conscious of  the  far-reaching  opportunities,  while 
our  Combine  took  in  the  whole  field  of  vision  in 
a  'moment  of  time' — saw  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning. It  is  said  that  women  see,  not  from  reason, 
but  from  intuition.  It  surely  is  intuitive  that  the 
whole  scheme  was  necessary  to  complete  the  full 
success  of  any  of  the  parts,  any  of  the  little  trusts, 
none  of  which  could  be  perfect.  The  little  com- 
bines referred  to  meant  a  temporary  fortune  to 
but  a  few,  to  lavish  upon  some  kind  of  lust.  Our 


214  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

Great  Combine  meant  a  LIVING  for  all,  dis- 
tinctively as  our  Revolutionary  Fathers  meant 
government  for  all — to  destroy  poverty  in 
America,  as  truly  as  they  destroyed  monarchy. 

"Some  of  the  men  in  the  olden  days  very 
learnedly  expatiated  on  New  Zealand.  We  had 
but  to  answer  them  that  they  were  the  real  dream- 
ers, to  propose  to  swap  off  'Of,  for  and  by  all  the 
people,'  for  the  makeshift  dependent  conditions 
prevailing  in  New  Zealand.  If  American  men 
with  their  better  civic  and  industrial  conditions 
could  not  think  out  a  better  industrial  system  than 
New  Zealand  ever  had  or  ever  could  have,  then 
they  ought  to  turn  the  matter  of  something  to  eat 
for  themselves  and  family  over  to  American 
women.  Clearly  our  government  was  all  right. 
Then  let  it  alone.  Do  not  weigh  it  down  with  a 
load  that  Combine  can  carry  as  a  feather's  weight. 
Ah!  but  some  of  the  wiseboys  would  say,  'YE 
can't  get  the  rich  to  go  into  it;  the}'  are  too  sel- 
fish', etc. 

"I  remember  on  one  occasion,  a  girl  in  the  be- 
ginning of  her  'teens'  replied,  'Why,  the  rich  are 
already  in;  they  are  there  before  us,  and  seem 
anxious  to  merge  with  everybody.  Then,  you  see, 
they  won't  have  any  antagonists — any  competi- 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  215 

tors.  It's  competition,  boys,  that  rich  men  want 
to  get  rid  of;  hence  the  Combine.  It  don't  pay 
them  to  fight/  Then  again,  if  Americans  were 
ten  times  more  selfish  than  they  are,  still  self-in- 
terest would  compel  them  to  become  shareholders 
in  Combine,  of,  for  and  by  all  Americans.  Still 
some  of  the  boys  shook  their  heads  as  though  they 
were  brave  and  just  enjoyed  a  fight. 

"Our  girls  had  a  difficult  task  to  show  the 
young  men  that  fighting  was  not  gallantry  when 
applied  to  'making  a  living,5  in  which  all  Ameri- 
cans, including  themselves,  were  equally  inter- 
ested; that  competitive  fighting  was  actually 
fighting  oneself,  which  was  neither  gallant  nor 
sane,  but  rather  cowardly  and  silly. 

"I  could  talk  to  Mrs.  System  for  weeks  about 
our  schemes  to  win  men  away  from  a  'simple  force 
of  habit,'  that  is  the  habit  to  compete  like  brutes 
for  a  living. 

"I  suppose,  Mr.  System,  you  will  be  sending 
for  your  wife  now  that  you  have  found  your 
proper  niche,  as  we  like  to  say." 

"Ha,  ha!  I  sent  her  a  letter  to  come  before  I 
left  the  office  of  the  Board  of  Examiners.  The 
letter,  Mrs.  Lazarus,  is  no  doubt  at  the  wharf  by 
this  time.  The  steamer  Greyhound  will  start  for 


216  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

Liverpool  at  9 130  tonight,  will  get  there  in  about 
a  week,  and  wife  writes  me  that  she  will  be  ready 
to  start  any  day;   so  you  see  we  can  expect  her  in 
about  two  weeks.    Then  in  two  short  months  after 
we  give  the  builders  our  plans,  we  will  have  a 
home  of  our  very  own,   to  forever  keep  secure 
from   any  competitor.     That's   'great,'   isn't   it*? 
Yet,  as  I  now  have  learned  to  look  at  the  real 
facts,  this,  as  great  as  it  is,  is  not  the  greatest 
attraction.     The  social  spirit — the  environments, 
the  feeling  that  every  man  I  meet  is  not  a  cut- 
throat, or  looking  at  me  to  see  how  he  can  beat 
me  in  a  trade ;  but  he  greets  me  as  a  fellow  share- 
holder, a  hearty  comrade,  a  real  neighbor.     You 
referred  to  the  good  Samaritan  a  little  while  ago. 
I  am  glad  you  read  the  Bible.    So  do  wife  and  I. 
Christ  said  to  a  lawyer,  in  answer  to  the  question, 
Who  is  my  neighbor *?  (I  read  the  passage  from 
Luke  x.*3o):    A  certain  man  went  down  from 
Jerusalem   to   Jericho,    and   fell   among  thieves, 
who  stripped  him  of  his  raiment  and  wounded 
him  and  departed,  leaving  him  half  dead;  and  by 
chance  there  came  down  a  certain  priest  that  way, 
and  when  he  saw  him  he  passed  by  on  the  other 
side  (he  probably  did  not  have  a  penny,  being  just 
a  priest) ;  and  likewise  a  Levite,  when  he  was  at 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  217 

the  place,  came  and  looked  on  him  and  passed  by 
on  the  other  side  (we  don't  blame  the  Levite — he 
could  see  no  chance  to  get  an  attorney  fee).  But 
a  certain  Samaritan,  as  he  journeyed,  came  where 
he  was,  and  when  he  saw  him  he  had  compassion 
on  him,  and  went  to  him  and  bound  up  his  wound, 
pouring  in  oil  and  wine,  and  set  him  on  his  own 
beast  and  brought  him  to  an  inn  and  took  care  of 
him;  and  on  the  morrow  when  he  departed  he 
took  out  two  pence  and  gave  them  to  the  host  and 
said  unto  him,  take  care  of  him,  and  whatever 
thou  spendest  more,  when  I  come  again  I  will  re- 
pay thee.  Which  now  of  these  three  thinkest  thou 
was  neighbor  unto  him  that  fell  among  the 
thieves?-  And  he  said,  he  that  showed  mercy  on 
him.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  him,  go  and  do  thou 
likewise. 

"I  that  speak  to  ye  was  a  fellow  that  fell  among 
thieves — competitive  thieves.  I  have  a  just  griev- 
ance. Moral  and  religious  reformers,  good  men, 
did  not,  they  could  not,  touch  my  sad  case. 
Neither  did,  nor  could,  the  party  politician.  He 
did  not  know  how.  Politics  did  not  apply.  Pres- 
ently a  business  man,  a  man  that  DID  know  how, 
and  was  able  to,  gave  me  a  helping  hand.  A 
little  over  ten  years  ago  I  was  left  in  a  similar 


218  THE  TRUST  TRUSTED 

plight  to  that  Judean  traveler.  No  American 
could  be  in  a  worse  plight,  when  Combine  came  to 
my  rescue.  Now,  as  I  said  some  days  ago,  I  ride 
with  Combine.  I  ride  because  he  rides;  he  rides 
because  I  ride.  No  American  walks.  We  all  ride 
when  and  where  we  please. 

"All  honor,  Mr.  System,  to  those  who  cared 
enough  to  try  to  protect  the  home,  prevent 
divorce,  to  reform  through  party  politics,  through 
unions,  through  little  societies,  by  morals,  by 
religions  —  these  have  restrained  the  march  of 
free  loveism  until  Combine  came  to  the  res- 
cue. But  the  saying:  'Lo  here!  lo  there!' 
missed  the  mark,  was  a  firing  in  the  wrong 
direction,  unwittingly  leaving  wide  open  the 
flood  gate  for  Competition  to  enter.  Compe- 
tition being  the  very  instinct  of  selfishness  was 
the  great  cause,  we  then  even  endorsing  it,  by 
calling  it  'free,5  permitting  inhumanity  and  in- 
dignity to  the  financially  weak  by  the  strong,  with 
the  inferred  sneer  of  'every  fellow  for  himself,' 
'defend  yourself,'  ignoring  Combine  which  had 
wrapped  up  in  it  the  humane  instinct  of  caring  for 
the  weak  by  including  them  in  with,  and  caring 
for  all  Americans.  The  industrial  concern  of 
one  has  now  actually  become  the  financial  and 


MORALS — RELIGION — POLITICS  219 

business  concern  of  all,  and  that  in  obedience  to 
the  financial  cdo  as  you  would  be  done  by'  of  the 
Master,  and  literally  according  to  the  teachings  of 
'the  BOOK'." 


TC  14990 


845668 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


